I’ve just been brought back from the brink.
I spent the last three and a half hours talking about relationships, religion, politics, lives, and the ways of the world with a really good friend. I’d like to tell you more about this friend but I was given explicit instructions to keep this friend out of this thing.
OK.
Besides, it’s not the person that I want to tell you about it’s the experience.
I’ve been a dumbass for the last couple of days. I hermit-ed myself since the day before Thanksgiving. I had a plan that involved a little more family on Thanksgiving but, without going into details, that plan didn’t quite work out. There was no Plan B so I hermit-ed myself. What a dumbass thing to do.
It’s dumbass-tic because disconnecting from the world of thoughts and possibilities leaves me at the mercy of my imagination and my imagination can come up with a lot of stupid, depressing stuff. You can’t even begin to imagine.
So that brings you and me to my story about tonight.
The best thing about tonight, spending time with this friend, was being able to say whatever I want and have my friend engage the thought. We went back and forth and agreed and disagreed and responded and didn’t dismiss and talked for the sake of sharing. Does a night get any better than that?
We closed out the restaurant and you know you’re having a good time when you close out the restaurant. In fact, we were going to leave but when we saw there were still people eating we sat back down until we were the last ones left. We sat back down and kept talking. I can’t tell you how good it felt, after two-and-a-half days of hermit-ude, to finally feel connected again.
Our plans came together over the last 24 hours and I was so hermit-ed that I wasn’t sure I would be good company. I really didn’t want to ruin the friend’s night but we’re not going to see each other for a while so for me to choose to stay home would be idiotic.
You know, the best thing you can have in your life is someone who can lead you out of yourself back into the world with the rest of everyone else. I started the night feeling, uncharacteristically, pessimistic. I’m not a pessimist and that’s how I know I did something dumbass-tic by hermit-ing myself. Then as a gift, this friend asked me to dinner. By the time our night was over I returned to the world as myself – the hopeful optimist, connected and whole again.
What a gift I tell you – to be given the chance to reconnect again after dumbass-tically choosing to disconnect from everyone. What a gift… you can’t even imagine.
