I want to give people the gift of knowing that it's OK to tell me they're not OK; and knowing that it's OK to not be OK. In the past month or so, the stress created by Covid has been amplified in my life by a new phase in the reckoning of my country (Canada) with its genocidal past in the form of abusive residential schools for Indigenous children. This is affecting me deeply both as a citizen and as a member of the Catholic church, which to its shame, operated about 70% of residential schools. Pile on top of that the death of a dear friend and teacher, and I am rubbed raw. I have been surprised to find, though, that there is an occasion for self-gift in my current sadness. I believe my heart is becoming more tender, more and more a heart of flesh and less a heart of stone. My defenses are defeated, and it turns out to be a good thing. Everyone who asks me lately how I am doing gets maybe more than they bargained for!
I hope and think, though, that my earnestness and honesty, and sometimes my tears, are an invitation for my friends to open their hearts as well. Honestly, who is OK? As the world slowly returns to normal, whatever that is, I think a lot of people are going to be bearing wounds. It's my hope that I will be open enough that people around me don't have to pretend to be happy if they're not.
Right now, my most urgent respite needed is simply holding my son and talking with me. Most days, I am home alone with him. I have a new friend in my upstairs neighbor and just had someone over for lunch from my church. With them and other mamas, my son runs up with open arms. It's so nice to have a break mentally that he enjoys the company of others than me, and the conversation running between us is refreshing: We're sharing life stories about our families, our struggles and fears. Since we recently moved and a close friend died, it has been relief during my time of grief and also a practical lift with my 30-lb toddler.
I hope to offer a healthful break for those who need friendship and are suffering. In the past, I've focused on food a lot in my life, but it's usually not been healthy. I've eaten out and wasted money and calories on food just for the thrill of dining. But now I'm trying to make things I used to eat out from scratch at home. It's better for my family - we're on a tight budget - but it also opens the opportunity to invite others into my meal-making (and also into my culinary interests). I can honestly say, "What are you craving? I'd like to take a whack at it." This feels really good to text someone because I know I'll be able to offer something to them they were already seeking.
Great topic! I just thanked Liz Bruenig on Twitter yesterday for all of her tweets about baking and day to day household chores. She likes doing many of them, and I think it's so important for those of us who are on "Team Martha" (as I like to call those of us who like doing house stuff and who like creating welcoming spaces for people) to say it's OK to like doing these things, to prioritize these things as important, and to say we are good at them.
Sometimes it seems like women who hate housekeeping, or who are bad at it get lots of "you go girl" and it contributes to the devaluing of home-making and caregiving.
Absolutely! Personally, I've gone through many phases...including one I regret, when I couldn't understand how another craft artist could take time from her work to bake cookies for her church. (At least I kept my mouth shut!) At times I've loved cooking, baking, and have felt that a good weekly home cleaning (shared with my partner and kids) was well worth every effort. At other times it was just a chore to get through as fast as possible so I could get back to "my real work." I'm often surprised at how pleasurable cooking can be. Anyway, I hope I never again disparage another person's choice to embrace homemaking to the max. True homemaking can be a rich gift to the family, neighborhood, and guests. And it shouldn't be only for women.
I really want to become hospitable, instead of regarding my spaces as mainly private art spaces to be rarely invaded. I'd like to host weekly lunch or supper gatherings to discuss the Sunday service and what resonates with us to apply right away to our daily lives. And to host regular gatherings to exchange shoulder rubs. And game nights....My big fear is that no one will want to come. And that I'll pretend at first to be OK with it and then later realize no, I'm devastated, and then will lack the resilience to try again in some different way.
> "My big fear is that no one will want to come. And that I'll pretend at first to be OK with it and then later realize no, I'm devastated, and then will lack the resilience to try again in some different way."
Awww, yeah! Oh, wow, is that a big fear of mine when it comes to dreams I have to bring people together / organize events!!!
Umm, what about involving 1 or 2 co-conspirators who will definitely come? Is that an option? I say this based on my experience organizing an online meetup on Zoom for people from an online forum. (So, haha, it wasn't as much vulnerability as inviting people into my home! And I didn't have to invest a bunch of time & energy in cleaning. BUT I -did- have my heart sunk into it and didn't want people to ignore me!!)
Anyway, when it came to discussing "what time works for everyone, and who will definitely be there?"--scheduling & logistics threatened to DISSOLVE into total CHAOS! Nobody seemed to be responding firmly in the affirmative, and a string of public responses of "I can't make that time" really drag down everyone's expectation that it will work out!
Eventually, I teamed up with the one other friend who REALLLLY wanted to MAKE it happen. I coordinated with her privately to find times when SHE and I could commit to be online for the meetup, and that way she and I could both state, "Okay... I will definitely be there at this time." THEN others joined up once they knew: A. There would be someone there and B. It wouldn't awkwardly be 1 other person.
Invitees can be soooooo flighty and flakey; even just having a discussion in church where someone's looking this way and that, and trying to assess which people are definitely going (and if any of them are cool?) would be very discouraging! Bless you!
A friend of ours has a regular Sunday night dinner where she invites people to share it. If you are willing to start small--like Vikki said--get a couple people who also want to do it and start with them. Are there people in your church that might want to get together? Keep the food simple--my friend used to just make a big soup or stew and some bread. People would bring wine--I can assure you that if you invite people for a simple meal they'll show up. People love to not have to worry about "what's for dinner."
I’d be grateful to receive the respite that comes from friends walking with me through a season that’s painful and lonely in some ways - making space for unresolved griefs and hurts.
I hope to offer friends some things that we’ve had to go without for so long: making music together, and face-to-face conversation. And homemade meals - I really hope our veggie garden produces well so that we can share a homegrown feast! It’s these kinds of small tastes of the Kingdom that I hope to share with the people in our lives.
What kinds of respite I most want to receive right now from a friend...
I want to have my friends' ears!! In most interactions, I am the "default listener," and so I often don't bring up "my things." (Though I giggle to myself that one friend of mine--while she was still a college student and I was like 35--regularly "out-listened" me. The joke I made in my head was that she was the "dominant listener," which I think is a fun way to 'lionize' someone like that.) Now, being the default listener has its own rewards--I love probing into their worlds on a deep level.
But now I want to ask for it to be "the other way around." With close friends from RL in years past, instead of throwing out "bids for attention" to random new acquaintances on Discord. (Though convos with new acquaintances can become pretty interesting, and do regularly yield mutual help or encouragement, I really don't like to initiate with, "give ME attention," as a dynamic.)
So I want to "call in the chips" on some of my closest and longest friendships and ask for conversations set on the default footing of, "we talk about my stuff." Also, I want to ask THEM each to be the one to place the call. (For me, this is huge!) I'm... hoping to send out an email this week and create a Google Doc that's a "rotation schedule" of friends to call or video-chat me. (One person pointed out to me that the very action of doing that might appear weirdly attention-seeking to the friends who get the Google Doc share... though the core idea seems good to him. I mean, I also kinda wish my friends would copy this, in connecting with each-other more regularly! I don't know!)
I know this sounds more like a thing to do DURING lockdown, but... my oldest friends are spread out geographically, so okaaaaay! (Maybe I should also figure out which RL friends I feel like I can "hit up" for these convos.)
Thanks for talking about this. Face-to-face hospitality has been much on my mind. (I'm in need of change when it comes to the basics of having a clean and tidy home.)
Vikki, I too want to "call in my chips"! All I want is to be the person who is invited in/over, rather than always being the one who sends the invitation text/email. I have struggled for a long time with loneliness (I have posted about it on other threads so I won't rehash it here) and I'm just now realizing how much it would mean to me to be the invitee. I think I'm an extrovert who needs to find other extroverts; many of my dearest friends are introverts and I think many of them just don't long to see me the way I long to see them!
Aww--bless you for being willing to put words to it here: "...I'm just now realizing how much it would mean to me to be the invitee." Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Wish I knew "the perfect thing to share" that speaks to that!!
But I -can- say that sometimes the things that I "tell myself I will try" are not the things I end up doing. The Google Doc I envisioned? Hasn't happened yet. However, the friend I mentioned who "out-listens me"... I finally called her! And then we went and visited her! (I think sometimes talking about a friend leads to interacting with them. Though maybe it depends on the conversation. Sometimes talking about a friend to someone else leads to interacting with them LESS!)
What are some things that you love in the friends you don't get to interact with as much as you wish? (: If you feel like writing. Writing less fun for extrovert than talking, probably, though. (When I take the MBTI/Keirsey, I've usually gotten close to 50/50 Introvert/Extrovert!)
(Also, if you told me which Other-Feminisms-topics have the comment(s)--I'd go and read 'em! Loneliness is huge, and I've been thinking about that... both in lives nearby and the big, wide world. Ping me for a discussion of loneliness in a Brené Brown I've been reading, if interested!)
I'm always interested in discussing Brene Brown! As a matter of fact, discussing pretty much anything is one of the things I love doing most with my friends - I always end up asking them what they are reading/watching lately so I can hear about new things. I was just mentioning to a friend (while talking about a Netflix show that I thought was interesting and she quit halfway through) that it's totally fine to tell me why you DIDN'T like something! I am interested in that too!
But I have one particular friend who I am missing that I look up to, almost as a big sister, and certainly as a motherhood mentor. Her children are 13, 11, and 8 (mine are 6, 6, and 2.5) and I always long to spend time with her because she is so wise and when I can work up the courage to share my heart with her she always gives me such good perspective. But it's hard because her children have their own activities, plus she homeschools them, so her days are not as flexible as mine are. She is also very rooted in her church community as an organist and in women's ministry; we're faithful churchgoers but in a parish as large as ours it's difficult to forge connections. Lastly, she has family (two of her three siblings plus her parents) nearby, which I think makes a difference. I have tried hard to make friends in recent years (Bible study! Volunteering in my children's classrooms! Co-hosting a block party!) and I've met so many kind people that I would like to be friends with, but it never seems to progress beyond waving at each other and brief conversations. I can almost always tell the difference between transplants to my metro area and natives; the joke I make is that the natives are very friendly but they have been here long enough that they already have enough friends!
Finally, if you are looking for my past comments, the one most relevant to loneliness is on What Can You Pour From an Empty Cup?
> "I always end up asking them what they are reading/watching lately"
NEAT... doesn't this end up yielding the BEST conversations? Bless you for doing this. :>
> "But I have one particular friend who I am missing that I look up to, almost as a big sister, and certainly as a motherhood mentor. Her children are 13, 11, and 8 (mine are 6, 6, and 2.5) and I always long to spend time with her because she is so wise and when I can work up the courage to share my heart with her she always gives me such good perspective."
Awww! This sounds so neat! I love friendships with women who I look up to like that. You know something weird? I think most people like you've described her, if they knew THIS is what you're after, would make time for for those kinds of interactions with you. Because MENTORING. I mean, it might be hard if they feel like they're placed on some tall pedestal. (maybe if we say "I want to ask you some really hard questions about things I haven't figured out about parenting!" that's intimidating, and they'd be like "oh no, she is going to treat the words that come out of my mouth like they're equivalent to scripture.")
And yet, if we (I'm using "we" because this is something you and I have in common) contrive to schedule a carefully-orchestrated "mentoring meeting," sometimes it'll just be weird and awkward... Maybe we won't speak freely & maybe it won't work out quite as well if it cropped up organically. Who knows? (What do you think?)
(Also- I need to take time to look up the Brene Brown quote and its context, and haven't gotten to it! It's in a discussion of severe loneliness, and there's some rather painful thoughts in that excerpt!!)
The last couple of weeks I've had people in and out of my place more often than usual --- the twist is that they've been coming over to help me, because I've been in a pretty rough spot physically. Most times thinking about how to arrange things for them coming has taken the form of kicking piles of laundry into a room they won't be using and closing the door. I haven't fully-formed words for my thoughts about it yet, but as I learn to let people help me I'm learning that most of them are glad to be allowed to help, so it's like I'm serving them in my need for service. Which, said out loud, sounds terribly selfish and "you all should be grateful that I let you have the privilege of washing my several-days-old dishes", but that's not how I mean it.
It takes courage and humility to ask for help. I agree completely that asking someone to help us is a gift to them -- especially if the asking is a request and not a subtle or unsubtle demand. (Though there are times when a demand is certainly the thing to make!) The way I tell the difference is that if a "No" reply is as good as a "Yes" -- it's a true request. Often I need to reflect on this to check my own asks.
Well, 3 months postpartum I mostly want people to come over and watch my baby while I do necessary house cleaning, organizing, and other projects (e.g., assembling baby stuff)! It just piles up so fast. (Still working out how to ask for that, and also how to balance it with chatting with these friends I've missed.)
As for giving respite? I'm really appreciating that I married into a house with a pool and hot tub, because it's an easy and refreshing offering, a way my home is automatically welcoming to others once I say the word.
In time, my goal is to host weekly potlucks, with low expectations except for good company... but, baby steps.
As a family with multiple food allergies and sensitivities, it would be nice to have someone offer to host us or bring food over without freaking out over the requirements. Every time I have to describe what we can't eat, the normal response is "so what CAN you even eat?" I get so sick of describing and answering questions about what we can or can't eat that I just don't even bother anymore. I offer to host just to avoid feeling like I'm forcing a menu on someone else.
Thanks for mentioning this issue. It's something I'm trying to get better at. I don't make comments to the person I'm cooking for, but I'm sometimes internally a grump when I can't make the dish I like best because of a guest's needs. It's not a very charitable or loving response!
Trust me, there is no one more grumpy than the person with food allergies about what they can or cannot eat! It’s best if you can just have a list of meals that work or be easily adapted for various allergen requirements as the hostess, so then it’s less stressful to come up with something on the fly.
This may sound weird but my experiences with food allergies made me more sympathetic to my black friends. When they talk about being tired of talking with white people or when they say things like “it’s not my job to educate you”. At first I felt like they should have to explain because they are the ones who want change. After dealing with food allergies for 5 years, I appreciate what it means to have a very different “normal” from other groups. And even if you would like things to change, sometimes you just need a break from talking about it and to be with other people who have the same challenges as you.
So sorry you're encountering this. I think the ideal would be to go further and say "what kind of food is healthy for you?" And then see what the overlap is between what the host can provide (affordably) and what you really want to eat. We shouldn't need to say "I can't" or "doctor's orders" but that's what is easiest. I don't mean that your family's food allergies and sensitivities aren't real. Just that in addition to asking about those, why don't we go a step further? And I'm talking to myself now, as a pretty inept hostess, so now I know one thing I want to do! Thank you so much for bringing this up.
I want to give people the gift of knowing that it's OK to tell me they're not OK; and knowing that it's OK to not be OK. In the past month or so, the stress created by Covid has been amplified in my life by a new phase in the reckoning of my country (Canada) with its genocidal past in the form of abusive residential schools for Indigenous children. This is affecting me deeply both as a citizen and as a member of the Catholic church, which to its shame, operated about 70% of residential schools. Pile on top of that the death of a dear friend and teacher, and I am rubbed raw. I have been surprised to find, though, that there is an occasion for self-gift in my current sadness. I believe my heart is becoming more tender, more and more a heart of flesh and less a heart of stone. My defenses are defeated, and it turns out to be a good thing. Everyone who asks me lately how I am doing gets maybe more than they bargained for!
I hope and think, though, that my earnestness and honesty, and sometimes my tears, are an invitation for my friends to open their hearts as well. Honestly, who is OK? As the world slowly returns to normal, whatever that is, I think a lot of people are going to be bearing wounds. It's my hope that I will be open enough that people around me don't have to pretend to be happy if they're not.
Right now, my most urgent respite needed is simply holding my son and talking with me. Most days, I am home alone with him. I have a new friend in my upstairs neighbor and just had someone over for lunch from my church. With them and other mamas, my son runs up with open arms. It's so nice to have a break mentally that he enjoys the company of others than me, and the conversation running between us is refreshing: We're sharing life stories about our families, our struggles and fears. Since we recently moved and a close friend died, it has been relief during my time of grief and also a practical lift with my 30-lb toddler.
I hope to offer a healthful break for those who need friendship and are suffering. In the past, I've focused on food a lot in my life, but it's usually not been healthy. I've eaten out and wasted money and calories on food just for the thrill of dining. But now I'm trying to make things I used to eat out from scratch at home. It's better for my family - we're on a tight budget - but it also opens the opportunity to invite others into my meal-making (and also into my culinary interests). I can honestly say, "What are you craving? I'd like to take a whack at it." This feels really good to text someone because I know I'll be able to offer something to them they were already seeking.
Great topic! I just thanked Liz Bruenig on Twitter yesterday for all of her tweets about baking and day to day household chores. She likes doing many of them, and I think it's so important for those of us who are on "Team Martha" (as I like to call those of us who like doing house stuff and who like creating welcoming spaces for people) to say it's OK to like doing these things, to prioritize these things as important, and to say we are good at them.
Sometimes it seems like women who hate housekeeping, or who are bad at it get lots of "you go girl" and it contributes to the devaluing of home-making and caregiving.
Absolutely! Personally, I've gone through many phases...including one I regret, when I couldn't understand how another craft artist could take time from her work to bake cookies for her church. (At least I kept my mouth shut!) At times I've loved cooking, baking, and have felt that a good weekly home cleaning (shared with my partner and kids) was well worth every effort. At other times it was just a chore to get through as fast as possible so I could get back to "my real work." I'm often surprised at how pleasurable cooking can be. Anyway, I hope I never again disparage another person's choice to embrace homemaking to the max. True homemaking can be a rich gift to the family, neighborhood, and guests. And it shouldn't be only for women.
I really want to become hospitable, instead of regarding my spaces as mainly private art spaces to be rarely invaded. I'd like to host weekly lunch or supper gatherings to discuss the Sunday service and what resonates with us to apply right away to our daily lives. And to host regular gatherings to exchange shoulder rubs. And game nights....My big fear is that no one will want to come. And that I'll pretend at first to be OK with it and then later realize no, I'm devastated, and then will lack the resilience to try again in some different way.
> "My big fear is that no one will want to come. And that I'll pretend at first to be OK with it and then later realize no, I'm devastated, and then will lack the resilience to try again in some different way."
Awww, yeah! Oh, wow, is that a big fear of mine when it comes to dreams I have to bring people together / organize events!!!
Umm, what about involving 1 or 2 co-conspirators who will definitely come? Is that an option? I say this based on my experience organizing an online meetup on Zoom for people from an online forum. (So, haha, it wasn't as much vulnerability as inviting people into my home! And I didn't have to invest a bunch of time & energy in cleaning. BUT I -did- have my heart sunk into it and didn't want people to ignore me!!)
Anyway, when it came to discussing "what time works for everyone, and who will definitely be there?"--scheduling & logistics threatened to DISSOLVE into total CHAOS! Nobody seemed to be responding firmly in the affirmative, and a string of public responses of "I can't make that time" really drag down everyone's expectation that it will work out!
Eventually, I teamed up with the one other friend who REALLLLY wanted to MAKE it happen. I coordinated with her privately to find times when SHE and I could commit to be online for the meetup, and that way she and I could both state, "Okay... I will definitely be there at this time." THEN others joined up once they knew: A. There would be someone there and B. It wouldn't awkwardly be 1 other person.
Invitees can be soooooo flighty and flakey; even just having a discussion in church where someone's looking this way and that, and trying to assess which people are definitely going (and if any of them are cool?) would be very discouraging! Bless you!
A friend of ours has a regular Sunday night dinner where she invites people to share it. If you are willing to start small--like Vikki said--get a couple people who also want to do it and start with them. Are there people in your church that might want to get together? Keep the food simple--my friend used to just make a big soup or stew and some bread. People would bring wine--I can assure you that if you invite people for a simple meal they'll show up. People love to not have to worry about "what's for dinner."
I’d be grateful to receive the respite that comes from friends walking with me through a season that’s painful and lonely in some ways - making space for unresolved griefs and hurts.
I hope to offer friends some things that we’ve had to go without for so long: making music together, and face-to-face conversation. And homemade meals - I really hope our veggie garden produces well so that we can share a homegrown feast! It’s these kinds of small tastes of the Kingdom that I hope to share with the people in our lives.
What kinds of respite I most want to receive right now from a friend...
I want to have my friends' ears!! In most interactions, I am the "default listener," and so I often don't bring up "my things." (Though I giggle to myself that one friend of mine--while she was still a college student and I was like 35--regularly "out-listened" me. The joke I made in my head was that she was the "dominant listener," which I think is a fun way to 'lionize' someone like that.) Now, being the default listener has its own rewards--I love probing into their worlds on a deep level.
But now I want to ask for it to be "the other way around." With close friends from RL in years past, instead of throwing out "bids for attention" to random new acquaintances on Discord. (Though convos with new acquaintances can become pretty interesting, and do regularly yield mutual help or encouragement, I really don't like to initiate with, "give ME attention," as a dynamic.)
So I want to "call in the chips" on some of my closest and longest friendships and ask for conversations set on the default footing of, "we talk about my stuff." Also, I want to ask THEM each to be the one to place the call. (For me, this is huge!) I'm... hoping to send out an email this week and create a Google Doc that's a "rotation schedule" of friends to call or video-chat me. (One person pointed out to me that the very action of doing that might appear weirdly attention-seeking to the friends who get the Google Doc share... though the core idea seems good to him. I mean, I also kinda wish my friends would copy this, in connecting with each-other more regularly! I don't know!)
I know this sounds more like a thing to do DURING lockdown, but... my oldest friends are spread out geographically, so okaaaaay! (Maybe I should also figure out which RL friends I feel like I can "hit up" for these convos.)
Thanks for talking about this. Face-to-face hospitality has been much on my mind. (I'm in need of change when it comes to the basics of having a clean and tidy home.)
Vikki, I too want to "call in my chips"! All I want is to be the person who is invited in/over, rather than always being the one who sends the invitation text/email. I have struggled for a long time with loneliness (I have posted about it on other threads so I won't rehash it here) and I'm just now realizing how much it would mean to me to be the invitee. I think I'm an extrovert who needs to find other extroverts; many of my dearest friends are introverts and I think many of them just don't long to see me the way I long to see them!
Aww--bless you for being willing to put words to it here: "...I'm just now realizing how much it would mean to me to be the invitee." Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Wish I knew "the perfect thing to share" that speaks to that!!
But I -can- say that sometimes the things that I "tell myself I will try" are not the things I end up doing. The Google Doc I envisioned? Hasn't happened yet. However, the friend I mentioned who "out-listens me"... I finally called her! And then we went and visited her! (I think sometimes talking about a friend leads to interacting with them. Though maybe it depends on the conversation. Sometimes talking about a friend to someone else leads to interacting with them LESS!)
What are some things that you love in the friends you don't get to interact with as much as you wish? (: If you feel like writing. Writing less fun for extrovert than talking, probably, though. (When I take the MBTI/Keirsey, I've usually gotten close to 50/50 Introvert/Extrovert!)
(Also, if you told me which Other-Feminisms-topics have the comment(s)--I'd go and read 'em! Loneliness is huge, and I've been thinking about that... both in lives nearby and the big, wide world. Ping me for a discussion of loneliness in a Brené Brown I've been reading, if interested!)
I'm always interested in discussing Brene Brown! As a matter of fact, discussing pretty much anything is one of the things I love doing most with my friends - I always end up asking them what they are reading/watching lately so I can hear about new things. I was just mentioning to a friend (while talking about a Netflix show that I thought was interesting and she quit halfway through) that it's totally fine to tell me why you DIDN'T like something! I am interested in that too!
But I have one particular friend who I am missing that I look up to, almost as a big sister, and certainly as a motherhood mentor. Her children are 13, 11, and 8 (mine are 6, 6, and 2.5) and I always long to spend time with her because she is so wise and when I can work up the courage to share my heart with her she always gives me such good perspective. But it's hard because her children have their own activities, plus she homeschools them, so her days are not as flexible as mine are. She is also very rooted in her church community as an organist and in women's ministry; we're faithful churchgoers but in a parish as large as ours it's difficult to forge connections. Lastly, she has family (two of her three siblings plus her parents) nearby, which I think makes a difference. I have tried hard to make friends in recent years (Bible study! Volunteering in my children's classrooms! Co-hosting a block party!) and I've met so many kind people that I would like to be friends with, but it never seems to progress beyond waving at each other and brief conversations. I can almost always tell the difference between transplants to my metro area and natives; the joke I make is that the natives are very friendly but they have been here long enough that they already have enough friends!
Finally, if you are looking for my past comments, the one most relevant to loneliness is on What Can You Pour From an Empty Cup?
> "I always end up asking them what they are reading/watching lately"
NEAT... doesn't this end up yielding the BEST conversations? Bless you for doing this. :>
> "But I have one particular friend who I am missing that I look up to, almost as a big sister, and certainly as a motherhood mentor. Her children are 13, 11, and 8 (mine are 6, 6, and 2.5) and I always long to spend time with her because she is so wise and when I can work up the courage to share my heart with her she always gives me such good perspective."
Awww! This sounds so neat! I love friendships with women who I look up to like that. You know something weird? I think most people like you've described her, if they knew THIS is what you're after, would make time for for those kinds of interactions with you. Because MENTORING. I mean, it might be hard if they feel like they're placed on some tall pedestal. (maybe if we say "I want to ask you some really hard questions about things I haven't figured out about parenting!" that's intimidating, and they'd be like "oh no, she is going to treat the words that come out of my mouth like they're equivalent to scripture.")
And yet, if we (I'm using "we" because this is something you and I have in common) contrive to schedule a carefully-orchestrated "mentoring meeting," sometimes it'll just be weird and awkward... Maybe we won't speak freely & maybe it won't work out quite as well if it cropped up organically. Who knows? (What do you think?)
(Also- I need to take time to look up the Brene Brown quote and its context, and haven't gotten to it! It's in a discussion of severe loneliness, and there's some rather painful thoughts in that excerpt!!)
The last couple of weeks I've had people in and out of my place more often than usual --- the twist is that they've been coming over to help me, because I've been in a pretty rough spot physically. Most times thinking about how to arrange things for them coming has taken the form of kicking piles of laundry into a room they won't be using and closing the door. I haven't fully-formed words for my thoughts about it yet, but as I learn to let people help me I'm learning that most of them are glad to be allowed to help, so it's like I'm serving them in my need for service. Which, said out loud, sounds terribly selfish and "you all should be grateful that I let you have the privilege of washing my several-days-old dishes", but that's not how I mean it.
It takes courage and humility to ask for help. I agree completely that asking someone to help us is a gift to them -- especially if the asking is a request and not a subtle or unsubtle demand. (Though there are times when a demand is certainly the thing to make!) The way I tell the difference is that if a "No" reply is as good as a "Yes" -- it's a true request. Often I need to reflect on this to check my own asks.
Well, 3 months postpartum I mostly want people to come over and watch my baby while I do necessary house cleaning, organizing, and other projects (e.g., assembling baby stuff)! It just piles up so fast. (Still working out how to ask for that, and also how to balance it with chatting with these friends I've missed.)
As for giving respite? I'm really appreciating that I married into a house with a pool and hot tub, because it's an easy and refreshing offering, a way my home is automatically welcoming to others once I say the word.
In time, my goal is to host weekly potlucks, with low expectations except for good company... but, baby steps.
I hope you're getting all the baby minders you can use!
Just saw this on NPR in their "Life Kit" series. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015799443/hosting-gathering-dinner-party-how-to-tips-checklist
As a family with multiple food allergies and sensitivities, it would be nice to have someone offer to host us or bring food over without freaking out over the requirements. Every time I have to describe what we can't eat, the normal response is "so what CAN you even eat?" I get so sick of describing and answering questions about what we can or can't eat that I just don't even bother anymore. I offer to host just to avoid feeling like I'm forcing a menu on someone else.
Thanks for mentioning this issue. It's something I'm trying to get better at. I don't make comments to the person I'm cooking for, but I'm sometimes internally a grump when I can't make the dish I like best because of a guest's needs. It's not a very charitable or loving response!
Trust me, there is no one more grumpy than the person with food allergies about what they can or cannot eat! It’s best if you can just have a list of meals that work or be easily adapted for various allergen requirements as the hostess, so then it’s less stressful to come up with something on the fly.
This may sound weird but my experiences with food allergies made me more sympathetic to my black friends. When they talk about being tired of talking with white people or when they say things like “it’s not my job to educate you”. At first I felt like they should have to explain because they are the ones who want change. After dealing with food allergies for 5 years, I appreciate what it means to have a very different “normal” from other groups. And even if you would like things to change, sometimes you just need a break from talking about it and to be with other people who have the same challenges as you.
So sorry you're encountering this. I think the ideal would be to go further and say "what kind of food is healthy for you?" And then see what the overlap is between what the host can provide (affordably) and what you really want to eat. We shouldn't need to say "I can't" or "doctor's orders" but that's what is easiest. I don't mean that your family's food allergies and sensitivities aren't real. Just that in addition to asking about those, why don't we go a step further? And I'm talking to myself now, as a pretty inept hostess, so now I know one thing I want to do! Thank you so much for bringing this up.