Barn doors

The words tumbled out of my mouth the way all the worst words usually do: Horses galloping out as the barn doors are swinging shut.

Yet again, without pausing for thought, I had unleashed a stampede of torment and just stood there, gaping slack-jawed at my own stupidity.

My son had a friend over for his first st at-arm's-length get-together in months. And currently they were so far apart they weren't even talking. I could have expected this. Even before pandemic times, most of their squabbles would start out just for argument's sake and carry into a real argument, followed by a period of long, active silence. Until they would shrug shoulders and the friend would go home.

Still friends.

"Just go apologize. Your birthday is in a few days. Do you really want to harbor bad feelings for the only kid available for playdates during a pandemic?"

The birthday boy froze and stomped away in anger and embarrassment. His, friend – had he heard me – would have felt justifiably insulted.

A neighbor had quietly extracted herself from the chaos my filterless thoughts created between our two houses.

My daughter leaped into action, telling me in no uncertain terms that words like those directed at her, would have brought tears.

"Oh my god, mom! It's amazing how in three short sentences, you have managed to knock down just about everyone who had been standing. Like you were bowling to hurt feelings."

She was right. It was an awful thing to say, no matter how I meant it.

Pandemic or not.

It's just me ... projecting my own fears onto the biggest screen I could find, and proceeding to foist this terrible scene onto everyone in my vicinity.

It doesn't matter that I miss people. I miss the kids' friends. And their noise. I miss sleepovers and pool parties and sending the kids to the store for ice cream just to hear the sound of silence for the time it takes to get there and back.

It's been hardest to get used to silence. 

And as we continue to cloister away, I worry that these old friendships will go the way of the school year, and summer camps, and sports events.

Into the void.

I apologized. Who am I to tell my son not to be angry? Not to take care of himself? Not to trust that he will work it out with his friend?

As they have for just about a decade.

As they would with or without me.

I apologized for not trusting the process.

But I guess that's the point. How can we trust a process I helped put into place?

A process that, in my own home, I designed?

Don't we always have to question our own motives, maybe even more than we question the motives of others'?

Challenging what you know to be true has been the full sum of my learning curve. At least for me, it's always been the things I didn't think to question, which turn out to be the most questionable of the so-called known facts.

Of course, he would apologize. This is not their first rodeo. Horseplay leads to an argument, which leads to the silent treatment, which leads to a reckoning. And around the ring, it goes.

Still friends.

The horses have to get out of the barn. Maybe they have to run with their terrible thoughts, and we have to see them shake off all our worst thoughts like tiny particles of dust against the light of day.