Loving Support Acts Without Invitation
Before diving into today’s post, I want to share that I decided to promote a new book by a friend and community colleague in this newsletter. He supported the launch of Never Ask for the Sale, and I wanted to return the favor. That said, he did NOT know that his book on the future of capitalism was going to be featured in a post as deeply emotional as this.
Seth Levine, here’s the good news: people read my emotional posts more than the others. So there you go.
Friends, please pick up a copy of Seth and Elizabeth’s newest book, Capital Evolution: The New American Economy, now wherever books are sold. Seth asks hard questions. He stands behind positions that matter. He votes—literally and figuratively—with his whole self, and this book is no exception. If you have been struggling to square the ways capitalism is working and not working for a country and world that holds equality and fairness as values, this book will offer a framework to look carefully at what we’ve created and at how we might course correct. It’s an invitation to shed some hackneyed lenses (left/right, growth/climate) and try on some new ones.
Already featured in the New York Times and destined for the most interesting conversations as we close out 25 and open 26. I highly recommend it for holiday mind-expansion for you and those you love.
*****
It has been a truly, epically cruddy last four weeks. My dear one and I parted ways, mutually. Even without 30 years together, even without shared children, the rupture has felt enormous. The grief mind-bending. Even knowing in heart, body, and mind that this is the right thing for us both, I have been hollowed up and crushed by it all.
There is that moment, you know the one. You wake up, take a few conscious breaths, notice your bladder is full, wonder what time it is, and then, POW, you remember that you are in bed alone, that your person isn’t there. That he won’t be back. Oh the gap between the innocence and the sadness is just…concussive.
And as much as I’ve been hurting, I’ve also known I am ok. Not BECAUSE I’ve been hurting, although some of my more philosophical and spiritual friends keep saying “this” is the work. I’m not yet sold on that idea, regrettably.
No, it’s just a sense that I’m getting out of that bed, brushing the teeth, crying the tears, wondering what my man is doing, getting dressed to go to the gym, going to the gym, lifting heavy things while listening to good content, and finding my way into the workday. My work is as divine as always. My clients are already accustomed to me crying at random times.
I am putting myself in the company of countless healers, including therapists, body workers, gyrotronics teachers (yeah, look it up), my brother, sister, and elder niece. For Thanksgiving, they offered me a wellness spa in their Portland home, packed with movies, great food (I finally strayed from the Mu Shu chicken that had been my exclusive food group, once I could actually eat), conversations that are as redundant as they are therapeutic, and walks in the rain.
It is all…helping. I am doing better. I am finding some meaning. I am starting to faintly glimpse the sensation of not being in a stressful situation, of not traveling on planes at least once a week. These are some offsets to being in a grieving situation. I am getting less drastically fearful of living the rest of life without a romantic partner. I am getting more understanding about how this all happened.
But that’s not really the point of this post. Because the origin of this post was weeks ago, just a couple of days after the breakup. I was walking with my friends Danielle and Will down to the Pearl Street mall, and we ran into Yoav Lurie. Yoav is a really cool dude, entrepreneur, investor, dad, and he (and his company Simple Energy) also was my subtenant in my first office space in Boulder in 2010.
Yoav and I are both Enneagram Type 8s. IYKYK. In 2010, we were both considerably less self-aware. So we just banged into each other, sparks flew, and I can’t even remember if they eventually DID paint that office wall Simple Energy green in the end. What I do know is that we both have spent some time growing in our respective self-awareness, and as Type 8s can do, those conflicts forged a wonderful friendship. We are not routinely in touch. But when we are in touch, it just feels like we are “in touch.”
That day was an example. As soon as I saw him I realized I was going to tell him what had happened. I was off. Quiet. He noticed. He asked. I shared it in two sentences. Then some tears. And before I could look up again or toss off the hurt by sharing that “I am okay,” his arms were wrapped around my shoulders in a hug that was not short, not performative, not…optional. I generally end phone calls and hugs peremptorily, fearful of the rejection that I might feel if someone else ends those things first. But this was an all-in hug in which I blessedly had no agency.
For me, THIS is “help.” The most meaningful help isn’t preceded by a question: “How can I help?” It isn’t something that follows an invitation: “Would you be willing to help?” Help is exactly the thing I didn’t know I wanted because someone is so attuned to me (or themselves) that they knew what I or they wanted.
Thanks Yoav.
And thanks all of you…for…so…much…help.
Any thoughts, feelings, or blurts? Share them here.