Speaking of Ellen

You ever slept in a bed with a fitted sheet that’s lost it’s elastic in the corners? You know how exhausting and uncomfortable that night is?

I’m going to air some of Ellen’s laundry here because it’s important and relatable and I need to give the girl some credit. Ellen is in a huge funk. She’s lonely, frustrated, confused, angry, bored, and very tired of all of it. I am also tired of it all but not really because of her bad attitude but because I hate for her to be unhappy. Sometimes you can look a person and see exactly what they need and sometimes the fix to problem is a little more tricky. Ellen is embarrassed and angry about the year she has had and feeling those things is difficult. Feeling those things and not having someone significant to share them with creates loneliness. As her sister, my brain wants to shout “You’ve got me! I’ll listen. I love you. I’m on your side!” but as a person who knows that sensation well, you want someone who doesn’t already love you to come in and say, “This is tough stuff and I’m sorry and I want to help.” Something about the built in love you get from a family can’t always cover all corners of loneliness, like a fitted sheet with worn elastic on the bends.

Yesterday Ellen called to apologize for giving me a hard time when I asked her for help this weekend. Ellen often grumbles and drags her feet if you need her for something. She’s always been this way. Yesterday I asked her why. “What’s so bad about helping people?” Ellie didn’t really have an answer. “Why are you mean? Why is everything a burden? Why don’t you allow yourself to be happy?” She didn’t know. Now this sounds like a classic case of depression which, in today’s society, means slap a prescription in her hands and scoot her off into a pill-popping daze so that she never learns about attitude and perspective and can continue feeling numb with a side mediocrity. Ellen isn’t depressed. She’s mad. Ellen doesn’t need medication. She needs perspective. 

I’m preaching twenty-something wisdom here so hold in your chuckles and I’ll edit this in a few decades when I’ve got more life under my belt. Being bored is hard. Being lonely is harder and it can exacerbate boredom. In my life, the mix of boredom and being lonely created restlessness and I was miserable in my restlessness for almost a decade. Ah my hopeless twenties. I would rather be seasick than live a perpetually restless month ever again. It’s awful. Ellen even referenced my depression decade last night during the apology phone call. “You were down for years and no one got on you for being a jerk.” and that’s when I explained the difference between me and Ellen in our times of trials. And I will rant for you here, what a decade of antsy, angry, loneliness did for my outlook.

The most valuable notion (to me) is a matter of perspective. Things could always be worse and everybody knows that saying but what I liked to do is come up with all the ways a situation could be worse. This seems negative and counter-productive but it works and it gives me a use for the superpower my Mom gave me which is the ability to foresee all disasters in a given situation. Use what you learn kids. When you snap out of the pessimistic brainstorming session, you realize that you’re just inconvenienced and that will pass. Focus on the fact that things will pass. One time I got a truly horrendous stomachache and I actually felt better and more optimistic when I imagined how good it feels to not have a stomachache and I just couldn’t wait to feel better! It was like anticipating a trip to Disney. Oh boy it’s going to be so good when my belly feels better.

Next, being a grump. You know how you always remember to comment and complain when you’re stuck in traffic but can easily forget to comment and delight in the fact that the road is pretty clear today? Of course you’re going to notice an inconvenience, but you don’t have to let it ruin things. I’ve always been a patient person and I think that plays a solid role in keeping my composure but I’m not often angered by something that sets me back a moment or two. I’d never thought too much about this whole notion until Brett got angry about being cut of in traffic and I was over in the passenger seat feeling all zen about things and he tells this story often.
“How does that not make you angry?” he wondered. I had to think about it. I assume that someone cuts me off because there’s a valid reason for that kind of rambunctious behavior. Probably, the guy is just a jerk and there is no good reason but I decide that there is and it makes me feel fine about him going first. I almost always assume that rude, reckless drivers just really have to go to the bathroom. “Been there buddy. You go ahead!”

This is a great little notion because when you do this long enough, you do actually notice and delight in the days where there aren’t any cars on the road or it’s a short line at the grocery store, or whatever non-grumpy opposite it is you struggle with. (I’ll add here for the sake of contradicting myself, if I’m in traffic when I’m already late for something, I will not be kind.)

When life blows, try not to dread things. This one is hard. I dreaded work the next day before I even got home from work today. I dreaded being home too because it was too quiet and lonely and boring in there. I don’t have wise words on how not to do this but I was aware that my dread made everything seem worse.

Lastly, I realized the exponential growth potential of my own happiness. All of these things feel so obvious that I remember being annoyed by them when I was in my funk. Happiness is contagious. I love making people happy so I never had to make the decision that I wasn’t going give my problems to other people but I was aware of the concept that I could bring everyone down with my own gloom so I made a point to try to avoid that. And sometimes I failed. I made Mom cry many times when she asked me how I was and I told her the truth instead of being the happy Laura she knows. Some days I was too down to fake it and I noticed on those days that everyone I spoke to was down too. Well that seems odd. Well it was because they weren’t grumpy, they were just annoyed by my attitude. If I came in smiling, they smiled. If I came in scowling, they rolled their eyes and didn’t want to talk to me. Done. Noted. So come in with your best fake smile and the people around you won’t hate that you’re there. 

This has another point that I think goes under the radar most of the time: Listen to people and ask them questions about themselves. Does Stacy in HR like to make her own granola? Ask her how she got into it, why she likes it, if she has a favorite flavor. Stacy will be so tickled that you’re interested in her. Stacy likes to talk about herself. It's something she knows an awful lot about. Stacy will remember this exchange and like you and be happy to see you. Then even on a bad day, you might walk past Stacy’s office and seeing her smile at you will make you feel a little happy. Happiness can be simple that way.

Even in my Decade in the Dumps I was overall a happy person because I decided to be. Focus on the good things, give love, be hopeful, and remember that the good and bad in life is temporary. Ebbs and flows dude.

I write this now in such happy moment in my life where little can get me down. I’m too excited about the good things. But I know I could fall back into a funk someday. Things can go terribly wrong in an instant and I could look back at this post and roll my eyes and just hate. I wonder Ellen’s thoughts as she reads this. How annoying to get “life advice” from your little sister. But see Ellen is clever and tough and it’s very easy for me to look ahead and know that she’ll push through and the next phase will be a good one. I don’t know when that will happen. A lot of it is up to Ellen but a lot of it isn’t. She can’t make the right person come along and she can’t create her dream life out of thin air. These things take time and patience. She does have the option to help herself, pray, and use the heap of loving traits she has. Ellen is a resilient little person with lots of good things in her life, including her worn-out fitted sheet of a family. We’re there, covering as much as we can but she does need someone or something that will show up and pop in some fresh elastic to hold everything in place.
Then finally, she can rest.