But in all my intense, messy mourning of a life suddenly gone topsy-turvy, I have noticed that strict rules of society still apply. Dimly, through the haze of my depression, I have worked out the following:
1. It is not O.K. to grieve for too long. A friend once told me that society in general gives you about a week to grieve for a dog, and a year to cry over a lost child. I have obviously already exceeded the limit for my particular problem, which is not easily explained and is not even on the official Richter scale of things to cry about.
2. If you are going to have a crisis, it is necessary that you make it one people can readily relate to. Only celebrities are allowed the luxury of Super Weird Problems-- everyone else has to stick to normal issues. Special exceptions are made for people married to celebrities. If your name is not legally attached to Cher, Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen, or almost any politician, you must stick to garden-variety problems. Otherwise, you can expect only a brief period of attention while people assemble the facts for gossip-spreading purposes only. Attention is not the same as sympathy, and you must be aware of this.
3. You are only allocated one problem at a time. I learned this the hard way when I discovered my daughter had a brain aneurysm at the same time my marriage was imploding because of alcoholism and my husband had just had a liver transplant. A friend called my daughter a hypochondriac in the middle of a crowded store, and shouted at me. The clear implication was that I was taking up too much of people's valuable time over a second incident. (If the truth be told, I actually had several more problems at the time, which I realize now was completely unacceptable. It's also possible that I was mistaken, and it was only because there were two MEDICAL issues at a time that I was being reprimanded.) Because I am a rule-follower, I quickly apologized for exceeding my allocation of sympathy. I did not realize there is a finite amount of sympathy to go around, and one cannot be greedy.
4. If you are going to cry on your friends' shoulders, then at least have the decency to do what they are POSITIVE they would do in your situation. They HAVE walked in your shoes, they would NOT be the idiot you are being, they certainly would have seen the crisis coming long before you did. If you are obstinate enough to make your own decisions, then you will just have to lie in the bed you made without any help from them.
5. Do not expect that people you helped in the past will help you now. You silly person you! Prepare to be stunned at the people who will cut you off the minute they find out you have the exact same problem. They do not want to be reminded of it, or be lumped in with you now that their problems are behind them. You are really stupid not to understand this.
6. Do not expect to be invited to the same events you were invited to in the past. Haven't you heard the expression, "There is no crying in baseball?" Well, that same rule applies to almost every other occasion. People want to be happy. Do you think they want to listen to you sniffle while they are trying to have fun? Do you think they want to see your sad face while they are partying it up? It's a downer, man! Come on, show some common sense.
There are many other rules I haven't figured out quite yet, which just shows my complete idiocy when it comes to grieving and social intercourse. Luckily, I have also been surrounded by people who dared to break the rules.
I have been invited to family gatherings by dear friends who knew I was lonely and broken-hearted, even though I didn't belong there. Friends who are excellent hikers or yoga enthusiasts urged me to tag along on numerous occasions, even though it meant they didn't get the work-out they needed that day. I woke people up in the middle of the night because I had time zones wrong, and they didn't yell at me. People dropped everything to talk to me, pray with me and dry my tears, even though I had exceeded my limit of sympathy a thousand times over. And last Christmas, a group of friends asked my daughter to pick up tons of thoughtful little gifts they had gathered for me, because they were worried I would find no presents at all under the tree.
Some of the best "givers" during this time were people who had been through the toughest of times themselves. They had logged hours in their own Italian Kitchen of grief. They had dirtied countless pots with the pain of cancer, the death of a child, the murder of a relative, loved ones' addictions, divorce, and a spouse's betrayal.
Grieving is messy, but so is friendship. I am so grateful for the people in my life who broke the rules in order to give me grace when I was too needy. I fervently hope that through my own meandering journey of grief, I have gathered enough strength and wisdom to lift others up and break the rules, too.
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