Just an FYI

Advising someone to "just relax" is in no way helpful. It doesn't help someone shrug off her burdens and gleefully skip about in blissful abandon. Telling someone to relax is akin to looking in the mirror and saying, "Grow, damn it!" I mean, I'm all for positive thinking, but I'm not about to sprout the four or five inches that would benefit my figure so much. It's advice, that while most likely entirely accurate, is next to impossible to follow. Quite simply, it doesn't work that way. And it's a platitude that is continually offered as appeasement for the months of exhaustive disappointment that have come my way.

I understand that people need something to say, and that they honestly want their words to be found helpful. And I don't want to seem ungrateful for their kind thoughts. But I also think people don't realize the absurdity of this advice "gem."

When my dearest friend suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage some five-plus years ago, it was followed by months of fist-shaking, loathsome infertility. And the more months that passed, the more stressed and anxious she became. Self-fulfilling process. I get that. But telling her to relax wouldn't magically make it so.

Just around the time of her would-have-been-due-date, I flew her up to Chicago to visit The Banker and me for a long weekend. We hit all the restaurants she'd seen on The Food Network. We shopped at all the flagship stores she loved. It was, in essence, a vacation from mourning--as much as possible, because I'm not a miracle worker, and mourning is important stuff. But she claims it helped. In the long run, I don't know if it made much difference. But I do know that she was pregnant again within four months and is now the happy--and harried--mother of two.

I'm not trying to gloat. And I'm certainly not asking for kuddos or trips to my much-missed Windy City. But I'm wondering why people do so little to help others relax. If that's your advice, why don't you let me out of that family obligation? Why don't you try not to cram a visit into an already-packed weekend? Why don't you let me off the hook, especially given how much you know I suck at saying "no"?