Fear of being too much

This week it feels like we've turned a corner here. On Monday the boys finally went back to school on a usual timetable. Things feels a lot more like what we considered normal in February. I've got the house to myself again from 8.30 to 4 or later on school days! I know that is not normal for many people in cross-cultural ministry, or indeed in this current season with many people still working from home, or schools operating in a hybrid fashion. But it feels good to be returning to what our family is used to working with.

On Monday I also travelled across Tokyo for the first time on trains to a meeting at our Japan headquarters. That's the first time I've done that since early March. I was thankful that the meeting started later, so I didn't have to battle peak-hour trains and had a seat on five out of the six trains I rode on. It made the journey less stressful.

Then yesterday I went out to have coffee with a friend I haven't seen for months. I didn't have to tell anyone where I was going, or be back by a certain time. It felt free-ing.

That's not to say that everything is the same as it was in February. Every time we go out we're wearing masks. And we're still having Zoom meetings for many things. This week I had a mission small-group on Zoom as well as a parents' prayer meeting for school.

This time of year we're usually going to cross-country meets every Saturday. It's not happening this year.  I'm rejoicing that I've got sleep-ins every Saturday, but missing the interaction with other parents that these meets often provide. And these are not the only events in the coming months—where there usually are opportunities for building relationships—that have been cancelled, or radically changed.

The start of a cross-country race.

September is often when I have a second wave of grief at the losses that happened in June when the school year ended. When school starts up again, I realise that life isn't quite the same as it was. There are people missing, "empty chairs" in my life.

So it's been good to connect with two or three friends who are around, but with whom I haven't invested much time in getting to know, usually because they don't live close. It takes intentionality to get to know people who you don't see regularly, especially people who look very busy. But I've also realised of late that I have a nagging voice that warns me not to overwhelm others. A fear of "being too much" in conversation and friendship. That can make it hard to venture out to push a friendship beyond "occasional contact".

Do you ever feel this way? 

I'm not sure why I feel this way. 

Maybe a deep-seated memory from childhood of being overwhelming to others when I got over-excited. As I child I probably didn't care so much, but now I am much more sensitive to making others feel overwhelmed and therefore turning them off.

Or perhaps it is just coming to the surface now when it's pretty common in my house to be told by my teenage boys that I talk too much (they wouldn't believe they are echoing what my primary teachers repeatedly said of me...). Of course that's been exacerbated in our house over the last months when my non-family outlets have been reduced. I was once asked by a female teammate of my son, how I coped living in a house full of guys. Simple: I have girlfriends! Though it hasn't been so simple of late, has it?

Of course it's never all about me. It has a lot to do with the other person too—what their personality is, what their situation is like, etc. I know, for example, that I live in a household dominated by introverted males who aren't into talking about feelings. In this house I can easily overwhelm everyone with too many words or emotions, so I tend to pack them away and then unsuspecting others I encounter can cop the overflow later.

I love raw, authentic conversation, but I know that that is something that makes some/many others uncomfortable. I also value that authenticity reciprocated, so I ask questions that helps me understand what it's like to walk in your shoes. That too can make people uncomfortable.

But perhaps I'm indulging in too much introspection!

Anyway, this week, after a particularly emotional time at our small group, I ventured to ask a friend if I could text her more often. I even expressed my concern that I might overwhelm her, and she assured me that that wasn't the case. Ah—that was a balm to my heart.

It's hard to keep making the effort to build up friendships when you've had others torn away. That effort gets harder as we get older. And, as I've said many times before, living outside of one's own culture, the turnover rate of friendship is much higher.

That being said, I was also able to drop in on an old friend yesterday: my best Japanese friend. I was passing within 50 metres of her stationery shop, so I popped in. We go back to 2006 when we had children in the same kindergarten class (and I had a one-year old!). It is good to have local friends who stay put!

If you have read all the way to here, thank you! My blog is a safe place for me to process my thoughts, and to put a lot of words and know that if someone is feeling overwhelmed, they can easily click away!