Week 36 Review: Connecting with Strangers and Selling my Husband’s Stuff

Usually when I sit down to write these weekly reviews, I start out thinking (and sometimes even writing), “I did pretty well this week following my resolutions,” or “I didn’t do very well this week following my resolutions.”

Today, however, I’m going to try to practice what I wrote about yesterday and start from a baseline of “I’m enough.” From this perspective, my resolutions are designed to help me “access my power” by clearing away the obstacles between the world and my true, Best Self. I do them or not, notice the results, and that’s it. No self-judgment.

Or at least that’s the plan.

So, resolutions.

I called several friends this week. Two I’ve not talked with in a long while. I left them each messages. They didn’t call back, and I didn’t call them back because I fell into my usual quandary wondering if it’s pushy to call again or if it’s loving to call again. I paralyzed myself into inaction.

However, I did call a friend with whom I was having an e-mail misunderstanding. She and I ended up having a Mommy Date for tea on Friday, and that cleared up all miscommunication. I came away feeling connected and cared for. I burned my tongue on the tea, but it was worth it..

I didn’t make much headway on the “making new friends” front, but I did engage in interpersonal activities as though I were willing to make new friends. This sounds like a tiny thing, but for me and the way I’ve been feeling this week, it’s a pretty significant step.

The biggest example of this: I volunteer with moms and babies in a group setting. I’ve been taking some time off and have only been to two meetings in nearly a year. I’ve frankly been somewhat afraid to go back to it. I worry that with everything going on I don’t have enough in reserve to give to anyone else. This week with my husband home to care for the kids, I had the courage to hop back into that role. I was so glad I went to the meeting. I approached the situation in a spirit of openness and empathy, and I was so refreshed when I returned home. The moms and babies were so caring and loving with one another. The group was just a huge well of empathy, and I felt quite connected with the moms on an emotional level.

This week, I put all of my friends’ birthdays on an online calendar and then promptly forgot about the two birthdays that were coming up this week. Luckily, Facebook reminded me and I was able to put notes on each of their walls. Not quite the personal touch I’d planned on April 1st, but it is indeed an acknowledgement of their birthdays and a connection with two friends.

This week I’ll be working overtime with the birthdays. My husband’s birthday is Thursday and my daughter is having her month-early, just-in-case-Dad-finds-a-job-and-we-move-before-her-real-birthday birthday party on Saturday. My daughter’s party is pretty well in hand except for the favors, which I want to be inexpensive but not cheap, and handmade and heartfelt but not overly time-consuming. I’m working on it.

My husband’s a little tougher. He doesn’t need socks or underwear, which are my old stand-bys. We’re not eating out right now, and we’re trying to spend no money on ourselves at all since we don’t know how long this “no additional income” thing is going to last. When we first moved here three years ago, I bought him an mp3 player to listen to music in lab. I joked that for his birthday this year I would sell his mp3 player and give him the cash from it. He said that the selection and sale of items we don’t need would actually be a quite nice birthday present for him this year (but that he wants to keep his mp3 player).

So, perhaps I’ll be looking around the house for things to sell.