Post by Brielle Kroner on Jan 18, 2018 16:49:33 GMT
Stick to Smallness
Our movie night got undermined by a death in her family.
I used the words we always use, though I didn’t say “I’m sorry.”
At the very least, I had to avoid that meaningless phrase.
Instead I said, “Condolences,” as if that’s better, and
“Hugs,” so she would know this was marginally more personal.
It’s a line I walk. Sometimes you can’t emotionally support someone
if there is another person in their life whose designated role is to do that.
My mistakes are circular, an electron orbiting an atom.
So I sent a banal text message with some semblance of sympathy and
cried in real life. In part about how I shouldn’t have bothered her in the
first place, but mostly with the empathy I knew she didn’t need from me.
We live in a valence shell, unknowing of the elements which contain us or the
means to break free, until we try to grasp a hand that
cannot be held.
Our movie night got undermined by a death in her family.
I used the words we always use, though I didn’t say “I’m sorry.”
At the very least, I had to avoid that meaningless phrase.
Instead I said, “Condolences,” as if that’s better, and
“Hugs,” so she would know this was marginally more personal.
It’s a line I walk. Sometimes you can’t emotionally support someone
if there is another person in their life whose designated role is to do that.
My mistakes are circular, an electron orbiting an atom.
So I sent a banal text message with some semblance of sympathy and
cried in real life. In part about how I shouldn’t have bothered her in the
first place, but mostly with the empathy I knew she didn’t need from me.
We live in a valence shell, unknowing of the elements which contain us or the
means to break free, until we try to grasp a hand that
cannot be held.
