I just had a visit at the office with a guy we work with fairly regularly. He's going through some stuff, and was clearly barely holding it together. And he just came in for a coffee and practically word-vomited everything onto me. We're not actually that close, but I'm glad I could be there for him. He clearly needed to get some things off his chest.
It just makes me sad, because I see this a lot, especially in the male-dominated world I work in... These poor men are holding everything inside until it finally comes out in a barely sensical mess, and they always choose a hapless woman to unload on. Why don't men have friends they talk to about their personal shit? It's so sad that they think they have to hold it all inside and be strong. Everybody needs to unload, unpack, regenerate. Examine the thing to see if it's really that bad, or maybe there's a fix you couldn't spot yourself?
I read an article recently that pointed out that men are quick to mock women for their female friendships. The long phone calls. The endless tea parties, or whatever pretext that allows us the life-saving work of unloading, supporting, uplifting, each other. That men only have their wives to talk to about these things, and that husbands tend to give nothing back in kind. Which is why we women need our "frivolous" and "time consuming" friendships.
Well, this guy has a problem with his wife. Amongst other things. So he's lost the only friend he can talk to. So he comes here, ostensibly for a good cup of coffee. He probably didn't even intend to divulge as much as he did, but it was clear that it just fell out of his mouth the moment he saw me. So I listened, and I sympathized, and as I gave him a hug on his way out the door, it was clear that he was trembling from pent-up emotion. From fighting so hard to stay strong. And I wish that I could fix that, because yeah, life is shit sometimes, but when you're that wound up, everything feels as equally terrible as the next thing.
I wish we could raise our boys to have emotionally supportive friendships, too. I wish we could teach our boys *how* to be emotionally supportive - of us women, as well as of each other.
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Yesterday was a lovely and cozy and quiet rainy day. I made slow cooker ham and potato soup, and it was excellent!
I'd brought home some invoicing to do this weekend, because omg, am I behind, and then I spent the weekend doing that thing where you know you're supposed to do the thing you don't want to do, so you do all these other things that you normally couldn't be bothered to do. So I now have a perfectly organized pantry - with a whole extra half shelf of unoccupied space! We have clean sheets on the bed. And so much clean laundry, omg. And I made a huge batch of my homemade granola, for the first time in like, a year - at least! - and it's delish, and makes it so much easier to make better breakfast choices. AND I prepped two healthy lunches for work - a chickpea salad for today, and a noodle soup for tomorrow.
I did manage to organize my huge pile of invoicing so that it seems slightly easier to tackle (emphasis on *seems*) but yeah... noooot so much with the actual invoicing.
My birthday is coming up pretty soon, and I invited some friends, but had to move it to the following weekend since 3 out of 6 wasn't able to make it otherwise. It's fine, I'm excited to introduce my closest friends to our new neighbor friends. I'm quite confident everyone's going to get along like a house on fire. :) Sven and I are planning a fairly classic menu, with a beef loin roast on the grill, potato gratin, and some fusion elements like thai cucumber salad and... some other veggie thing I haven't quite decided on yet.
Also, because I am a diva only child who cannot abstract from my birthday in the slightest, Sven said he'd take me and my parents out to lunch on the actual day, and I got to decide the place. So yes. Turning 39 is gonna be pretty sweet, I think. :)
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Emotional hurdles and displacement activites
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