Not an Island

A friend and I had scheduled time this morning to meet at a coffee shop and catch up. With our move just over three weeks away, little stresses (and some bigger stresses) associated with the move are beginning to creep up on me. I came to the coffee shop with a hankie in my pocket and swollen eyes from crying on the phone with my mom earlier in the morning. 

My heart is feeling a lot lighter, after meeting with my friend. We talked about the stressful things, but we also talked about the happy things. We talked about the 'isms' of living in a small town, like how I found out yesterday I could close my bank account here over the phone if necessary. (But please, don't mess with me. I'm hanging onto my composure by a thread some days and I might just have kittens if my bank account disappears without my knowledge.)

I don't know that my friend said anything new to me that I should be breathing so much more freely. But she was here. She listened. She understood and tried to understand. She helped me laugh when I'm so inclined to view everything with a serious eye. She nudged my mind onto happier topics than the stress-inducing topics that have taken up permanent residence in the forefront of my mind. 

And I like to think that I encouraged her too, that I listened, that I tried to understand, that I helped her laugh. I am not an island. I'm not so good at sharing myself that I consider myself to be on the mainland. But I'm learning allow myself to be part of an archipelago. 

I am not an island.

"We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another." - Thomas Merton in No Man is an Island