“Okay, spill. And while you spill, I shall stroke hairy fibers.” Friend-Sandra was back and she tucked the yarn into her basket, giving it another pet.
“I can’t tell you everything, because things are still in flux.” I didn’t want to tell her about Dan or why we’d decided to get married. Dan was her friend as much as he was mine. As far as I was concerned, nothing was 100 percent decided between him and me. We hadn’t reviewed my list of misdeeds; he could still back out. I didn’t want Sandra to judge him harshly if he changed his mind.
“Okay, tell me what you can.” She picked up bulky weight merino yarn and stroked the back of her hand across it.
“So . . .” I cleared my throat, not knowing quite how to start. “There has been some upheaval at the company.”
“And it has you stressed?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “And you’re beating yourself up about . . . ?”
I huffed another laugh at her mind reading skills. Or maybe she just knows me too well.
“I guess, I could have it worse. Things could be worse.”
“Things can always be worse, no matter who you are. You might never again wonder where your next meal is coming from, but life isn’t the grief Olympics, it’s not a competition for who has it worse.”
“Sandra.” I stopped her with a hand on her elbow, whispering, “I’m worth seventeen billion dollars.”
“So what? Allowing yourself to feel badly about the fact that you have so much, in terms of monetary assets, and others have so little in comparison will do nothing but cause you to be paralyzed by guilt. Money does not equal happiness or fulfillment. Some people will argue that you ‘have it better’ than 99.9 percent of the world, but those people can’t comprehend the burden of what’s facing you, or of the life you’ve lived so far.”
I stared at my friend, absorbing her words. “I’m allowed to feel sad, disappointed, and frustrated.”
“Bingo.” She grinned, picking up another skein of yarn and brushing it against her neck. She immediately frowned, putting it back. “Ugh, scratchy. What is that? Acrylic?”
It had taken me a long time to accept that I had a right to sadness or anger. For so long I’d felt like, because of my birthright, I wasn’t allowed to feel anything but gratitude and guilt. How could I feel sadness over the loss of my mother to her disorder when others in the world were suffering, starving, and couldn’t afford basic necessities? How could I justify feeling disappointment about my father’s disinterest in me when there were millions of children in the world without a home?
This emotional paralysis was the first issue I’d addressed with Dr. Kasai, but even now—especially when I felt overwhelmed—I experienced difficulty accepting my emotions, desires, and wishes as legitimate.
“I think you said to me once,” Sandra turned to me, crossing her arms, “that you feel like your freewill is eclipsed by the responsibility you feel to the people employed by Caravel Pharmaceuticals. Also, responsibility to the people who might be helped by the products they develop, or might develop while you’re the majority stakeholder.”
“Yes.” I gave her an accusatory smile. “I did tell you that. If memory serves, it was that one time you got me drunk and I spilled my guts.”
She returned my grin with one of her own, not looking even a little bit guilty. “Out of curiosity, if you could give it all up, if you could sign it over to someone else and walk away, leave with nothing, would you?”
Stunned by the timeliness of her question, I blurted, “No. Of course not. It’s my responsibility. I walked away once and that was childish and selfish. I would never do that again.”
Sandra’s gaze turned probing. “There’s not even a wee, itty-bitty, little, teeny-tiny part of you that wants to walk away?”
I sighed, my chest tight with guilt, and felt my shoulders sag. “Perhaps a little part of me. A very little part of me.”
Because then I’d be free from failure, wouldn’t I? And right now—to that very small part of me—freedom from failure would be a relief.
Sandra nodded slowly. “Given the magnitude of what’s facing you, I would be surprised if a part of you—a very little part—didn’t entertain these thoughts. The urge to escape a trial by fire is normal. As long as you’re not seriously entertaining escape as an option, then know that these thoughts are healthy. But!” She held up a finger. “I’m more interested in how the thoughts, this desire to escape, makes you feel.”
I released a humorless laugh. “Guilt. Guilty.”