A Bad Case of Laryngitis, A Softball Game and a Brick Wall

Recently I got really sick and lost my voice so completely that I couldn’t make a sound squeeze through my vocal cords. This is a helpless feeling. I didn’t realize how much I do talk until I actually couldn’t – at all. My daughter and I figured out a way to work around it. We had a little system. She would talk and I would answer via extreme gesture or with text messages. My puppy was just forlorn. He kept looking at me with his giant puppy dog eyes begging me to praise him. But I couldn’t. I tried to continue normal life and even called into a work meeting but unable to make a sound it quickly deteriorated as they relentlessly made fun of me while I answered back via instant messages that my male co-worker read out in a high pitched whine. It was humiliating.

On strict vocal rest, but bored out of my mind, I decided to brave the work softball game. Every Thursday night in the summer, a large group of faithful fans gather to cheer on our coworkers as they play other local teams (and usually lose). While there is cheering going on, there is much more talking and laughing as these times are often the only time I see these friends even though we work in the same building.

I figured I could at least go and be with people, even though I couldn’t speak. After all, I could listen. I didn’t realize how difficult this was going to be. For some reason, that night it felt like everyone wanted to talk to me. They asked me questions and I had great answers and I wanted to talk but I literally couldn’t. It was the most frustrating thing.

But that night something happened that I won’t forget. My friend Jillian stepped in to be my voice. At first, she just told people I lost my voice. But then when a question was asked of me, she would know the answer and she would tell it. She knew stories about my week, my kids, what the doctor had said to me. A few times I would text the start of the story to her and she would finish it unaided. So many people laughed and finally her roommate said, “I didn’t realize you knew so much about Amie’s life.”

Up until this point, if asked, I would have called Jillian a good friend –but I probably would have thought that my main role in her life was as a mentor or listener. That was typical for me and a role I was comfortable in. But in that moment, I realized how much Jillian knew me. Like really knew me. In sharing life together, I had told her stories from mine – examples, heartaches and even current struggles. Not all at once, but bit by bit over the last year. And she had listened. And heard me. And wasn’t afraid to tell other people.

While this seems normal to most people, this was new for me. I listened to others, asked good questions and made people feel heard. But I rarely shared what was going on with me and was rarely asked. This was probably less about the other people and more about the giant brick wall I had firmly built around my heart. After years of rejection, I no longer really even tried to let people in. I stopped hoping for someone to even realize a wall was there.

But somehow this 25-year-old girl had broken through the wall and I hadn’t even realized it. I hadn’t been paying attention.

But in this moment – at this silly softball game, it was obvious. She knew me so well, she could actually speak for me and advocate for me when I literally could not.

Of course, my voice eventually came back, but I think it was that very moment of realization that I started to wonder what life would be like if I started to dismantle the wall and let people see me. I wanted to be known like this. It felt right and affirming. I felt more alive than I had in a long while.

I looked around myself at the players in my life and didn’t see anyone like me. This had always been my excuse in the past. I was older and had kids and had struggles that people couldn’t understand. But there were people here in my life. There was this 25-year-old girl and a 27-year-old single guy and a bunch of other “not age appropriate” people who seemed to enjoy talking to me. I decided that life is what you make it and you can only play the game with those who are willing to step up to the table. And these were my players today. Was I willing to take a risk?

Apparently I was. I slowly and deliberately started to tear down the wall – brick by brick. And while it has not been without fumbling missteps and buckets of pain, I can say this. I have learned more about how important it is to feel emotions and be real from that 25-year-old girl than I ever have from anyone else. I have learned more about loyalty and sticking with people in the midst of their mess from that 27-year-old guy than I would have thought possible (and he has forever redeemed the male species for me). I have learned that it is okay to be a mess and not have it all together and that if people really like you they will allow you to fall apart and not make sense. I have learned that there are people willing to drop everything and talk to you when you are just sad and don’t know why and that won’t run when you need to have a difficult conversation even when it makes them uncomfortable.

I have also learned that friendship hurts and is hard. And that sometimes it feels easier to have a wall protecting your heart from pain. But even with the pain, there is nothing that can compare with knowing that you have someone to call in a crisis. Someone that won’t hesitate to help – even if it costs them. There is nothing that can compare with that feeling of being known – someone who knows all of your stories and your contexts and your crap. The wall is firmly down now, and hopefully won’t be rebuilt any time soon.

Who knew laryngitis could change your life forever?

The Art of Asking

I am reading a book called “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. I have no idea who this woman is and hadn’t heard about her before I started reading this book – but it is intriguing to me. Because asking for help is something I typically don’t do.

There are many reasons really. I am sure I could spend thousands of dollars in therapy (and have!) figuring out all of the reasons why. I was raised to be “fine” – to keep emotions to myself. Having feelings at all was frowned upon – being good was the goal. When I grew up, this persisted as I stayed in a marriage for fifteen years with a man who verbally and emotionally abused me…not every day but often enough to keep me in line. Hearing for years that you are not worth anything makes you start to believe it. You don’t even know how to ask for help. It is not a thing on your radar…surviving every day is all you can do. How can someone help with that?

I may be one of the few people in the world who is grateful for her husband’s multiple affairs – not because they didn’t devastate me and shatter my heart into a million pieces – but because with the leaving came the freedom and the healing and the recognization of the lies and manipulation I had lived under for fifteen years. I was able to finally be myself and be okay with that. BUT that didn’t mean that I learned to ask for help. I was strong. I could do it all by myself.

I had been for years after all.

So I was reading this book today and a guy was telling a story about how he had worked up the courage to ask his aunt to talk to his dying mother. They had been feuding for years. It was ugly. But this guy decided to call his aunt and lay out his heart. He laid it all out there, he asked her to come see his mother.

And she said no.

“It was so hard for me to ask,” he said, “I never ask for anything. And I’d finally asked. That answer…it crushed me.”

I had to put the book down and cry.

Because I get that. I so get that.

Having lived the way I had for so many years – afraid to be myself, afraid to let people see me – it took me a long time to ask for help. I did it so rarely, I can actually remember each and every time in the last ten years.

The first time I tangibly asked for help…I was ignored. I asked explicitly…the person heard me…and then ignored my request.

It took me 2 more years to ask for help again. This time it was a rather easy task related request. I asked with a level of vulnerability this time. I explained that it was hard for me to ask and why. The person said they would help. They didn’t show up.

I stopped asking. If I needed help with something, I either figured out a way to do it myself or left it undone. I learned to live with broken light fixtures, sink faucets and without a small group. Because I had learned that it was easier to do that then to get rejected.

But what happens when you live life that way? For me, that ended up in walled off emotions and lonely nights. I have spent nights in the hospital waiting rooms alone, gone to the mental hospital to visit my child alone, dealt with the aftermath of car accidents alone, spent sleepless nights worrying alone…probably more than the average person. All because asking for help didn’t go well for me.

So recently, I decided to stop doing that. I decided that risking and vulnerability needed to replace the fear of rejection. And I am not going to lie. It has not been easy or without gut wrenching pain. I have risked talking about things I don’t talk about. I have asked explicitly for what I need in friendships, in work and in life in general. And I have been hurt. And I have been rejected. And I have been devastated.

But in the midst of that, there have been moments of pure joy and freedom. There have been people who have stepped up and cared when you haven’t thought they would. There have been offers of help when I haven’t been able to even formulate the question. There have been crisis times when I have actually had someone to call.

While not everything has gone the way I had hoped it would, and I have some regrets about things I have shared, I have learned that even with the pain – it can still be worth it. It is worth it to open yourself up to others – even if they let you down sometimes. It is worth it to be your authentic self – scars and all. It is worth it to ask for help – even if the answer is no. Because although it hurts, you have to risk in order to get a reward. And the rewards do come…the trick is to hold onto them and not let the fear overtake you.