She came off as a cranky old bag, the kind of person who spends the day peeping through a crack in the living room curtains so that she can run out onto the porch to scream at any damn kids that dare to step on her lawn. But when I read her letter, I could tell those were just symptoms of a deeper and more universal problem.
Those letters are kind of my specialty.
Dear Grammy in Miami,
When I was twenty-two years old, I left home and moved to New York City, one of the most crowded pieces of real estate on the planet. Every place I went, I was surrounded by other people, yet I’d never felt so alone.
That’s the worst kind of loneliness, isn’t it? The kind that comes from feeling unknown and unrecognized even when you’re standing in a crowd. Everybody feels that way at some point—invisible, irrelevant, obsolete, alone, and terribly, terribly afraid.
Sound familiar?
It’s not just you, Grammy in Miami. It’s everybody. I’ve got proof.
A couple of weeks ago I took a cab ride with a driver who had the radio tuned to a Christian station and liked his music loud. I could have asked him to turn it down, but though she has lived in the big city for many years, Calpurnia has never cottoned to confrontation, especially when it is raining out and she might be unable to find another ride should an angry driver eject her from his cab. This being the case, I held my tongue.
But before the passage of many blocks, the words to one of the songs caught my attention. The singer voiced a prayer for deliverance from the things that made her feel most afraid and alone . . . the need to be understood, the need to be accepted, the fear of being neither and being humbled in the process, the fear of death, and trial, and having nothing, and being nothing.
The needs and fears that woman sang about are the same needs and fears that once made me feel like the lone castaway on an island with a population of a million and a half. They are the same needs and fears that are making you feel so lonely and unhappy now, the ones everybody faces at some point in their lives, when all that was familiar has been stripped away and we’re thrust, willingly or unwillingly, into the next phase of life. It’s not just you. It’s everybody.
How do I know this?
Because somebody wrote a song about it. Because somebody else recorded it. Because my cab driver cranked up the volume when it came on the radio. Because my eyes welled up when I heard it, and because, even after all this time, I remember how it feels to be so alone and so afraid. Sometimes I still feel that way.
If you had been in the cab and heard that song, you’d have felt the same, like you wanted to cry. But you wouldn’t, would you? Somewhere along the way, you learned that it wasn’t acceptable to cry. Or maybe it wasn’t safe? Instead of crying, you’d swallow your tears and shout at the cab driver to turn down the damn radio, then maybe stiff him on his tip. I’m not sure about the details but somehow or other, you’d react. Because admitting you’re scared is just too scary. It makes you feel vulnerable and more alone than ever. I get it.
It isn’t just you, Grammy. It isn’t just me. It’s everybody.
It’s your son, and your daughter-in-law too. It’s definitely your grandson. You said he’s off to college in a few months, to a school that was far from his first choice that is also far from his friends and family. Small wonder he’s snappish and sarcastic and even rude. Like you, he’s afraid of the unknown, and so afraid of being lonely that he’s already isolating himself. Like you, he’s reacting.
Exactly like you.
(Those pippins don’t fall too far from the family tree, do they, Grammy Smith?)
Talk to him, buttercup. Start a conversation. An exchange, not a lecture. Let him know that you understand what it feels like to be scared and lonely and lost. Be real with him.
If you are, chances are good that he’ll return the favor. When he does, listen. Listen as hard as you can. Then repeat the process with the rest of your family. And the neighbors. And the guy who rings up your grocery order. And the lady who checks in your