My husband left me
when I was seven months pregnant with my second child. I felt like my life was
going to end. I was 27. The first weekend he came to fetch the children from me
for the weekend, the silence was deafening. I roamed around the townhouse for a
few hours, not really aware of where I was or what I was doing. The weekend passed in a blur.
The next weekend I had
on my own, I was prepared. I had DVDs coming out of my ears. Enough to help me
not to think and not to feel alone. This became somewhat of an obsession for me
so much so that I have one of the biggest collections of DVDs among my friends.
Enough to start my own DVD store. I even had DVDs I didn’t really like. Ones that
were badly made, had poor actors in them, a pathetic plot, and just left me
with no real value.
When I decided that
perhaps it was time to shake it off, and get out into the world, instead of
DVDs, I collected people. I made friends with the people in the shops, people
at the garage, people I met at my children’s schools. And I made appointments. I
had dinner appointments, drinks appointments, breakfast appointments, tea
appointments, lunch appointments, more tea appointments, and it went on and on.
The BUSYness. The FULLness.
Until one day, I discovered, just after I had to have TWO
birthday parties for my thirtieth, because there were too many actors in my
plot, that I had collected people much the same way I had collected DVDs. Some
were amazing. I wanted to watch them over and over again, and I would never
grow tired of them. Some were great to watch a few times a year. Others left me
feeling empty, hollow, and just plan BLEGH. What an amazing feeling. To be able
to pinpoint where I was receiving value, and nourishment, and support, and
where I wasn’t.
And so,
systematically, slowly, my DVD collection became smaller, and so did my list of
friends. And now, ten years later, I still find myself impulsively collecting
DVDs, and sometimes people as well. But I know that some movies, just like
relationships, are either meant for a season, a lifetime or a reason.
Pay
attention. And be kind to one another.
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