Feeling Invisible

I owe my kids an apology.

I got together with a group of good friends this week for dinner and to celebrate a birthday. This is one of three groups of women I get together with a few times a year for dinner and conversation, and this particular group goes back longer than any of the others. We lived in the same neighborhood and raised our children together. Our kids attended the same grade school, had the same teachers. We sat on buses together for field trips, attended school and scouting events together, got to know each others husbands, socialized as families. There are roots here that go deep, and I am very connected and fond of these ladies and their children.

So how come I left after two hours and never told them that Ben is in a relationship, or that he's doing well in a new job, or he's about to take a trip to DC to see Dave Mathews in concert? How come I never mentioned that Josh got a paper accepted for presentation at a conference at Rutgers University, or shared the funny stories he's told about roommate issues? How come I left without even simply saying they were fine?

Yes, there's a lot of territory to cover when we all get together. There are 15 kids to discuss and now some grandchildren. There are three husbands and three jobs to dissect, old stories to rehash, and lots of good, old fashioned gossip to get on the table. Still, when these ladies went home, if they'd been asked, "What's new with everybody? What's the gossip?" my friends would have been hard pressed to say anything about me or mine.

My problem is, unless I'm one-on-one or with my large, extended family, I am conversationally challenged. Way back when I was a high school/college student, I rarely contributed in class. Put me in a department meeting at work and chances are pretty good I won’t say anything.

In my opinion, I lack conversational self-confidence. I'm not verbally gifted, like Katz. I've never been able to tell a joke well and if I retell a story in an uncomfortable setting, it often comes off flat or lifeless. When I'm excited about a book or an article, I love to share that excitement, but oftentimes I don't do it justice in the telling. "I can't quite explain it, but it was really good. You should read it," is a common summation Katz hears from me when I try to convey a good read.

I am capable of telling a good story if all the stars are aligned, i.e. a non-competitive atmosphere, a group of people who are just as interested in hearing my story as telling theirs. I can recount an emotional encounter or something funny that happened at home or work and do a pretty entertaining job of it. I would have loved to talk about the raspberries Jane brought to the garden tour for me "from Joe", and told my friends how Joe and I had talked Square Foot Gardens and garden-grown raspberries two months before his unexpected death. It would have been a story they loved to hear, I think. But, how to go in that direction, how to interject into a flow of words from four other voices that never ever lags? I don't know how to do it well, I don't know how to do it comfortably, I don't know how to do it without that sense I'm taking up time my friends would rather spend talking about other things.

Katz teaches a class called "The Art of Relationships". It speaks to the importance of personal dynamics and how to make sure everyone is heard. It talks about asking open ended questions so that a dialogue ensues. I admit it: Conversationally, I am like an unlit campfire without kindling. I can be lit and I can burn fairly strong, but you're never going to get much from me unless you help me out. I need an invitation to talk, a dialogue-inducing question like, " What was the most interesting comment about your garden?" or, " What kind of research are you doing for your book?" or, "I loved that blog post you wrote about your friend, Joe. Tell us about him?"

As much as I enjoy and love my friends, as committed as I am to maintaining these relationships and being loyal, as much as I want to hear EVERYTHING about their lives, I walked away from Thursday's dinner feeling a little invisible. I know this is my responsibility and I need to work on it, but if you are my friend and you are reading this, you could help me out. It's not that I have nothing to contribute, it's that I need a little kindling to get started.