Trying to Reconnect

Comment: Back in March, my sister was accepted to University. I’m going to miss her so much, and of course whenever I’m feeling sad I’m going to turn to the Alice book when she was the most upset about Lester leaving (I can’t think of the exact one right now, but I’ll fish it out of my stack when the time comes :)). Anyway, I feel like ever since then I’ve been so disconnected to myself. Recently I’ve been crying a lot, and worrying way too much about my friends and not my sister who, for Pete’s sake, is moving 3 hours and 40 minutes away from me in August! Recently I haven’t been reading and writing as much as I used to and I am really uncomfortable with that fact. Reading used to whisk me away to another world, a world that involved other people’s problems and not my own, and that’s why I think I’ve been so upset and crying about my own little issues. As for writing, it had the exact same effect on me, except I was using my own problems. It was a therapeutic way to relieve my anxiety and stress.

Lately I’ve been trying to reconnect to myself, but I just can’t put aside time for myself. I spend too much time on my phone waiting for texts or DMs or snaps (those last two are both social media terms). Do you think I should let the reconnection happen naturally, or should I push myself to get back to doing what I used to love?

Phyllis replied: Okay, so life was going along in its own little comfortable way—sister/friends/writing/reading—and suddenly there’s a bump in the road, a void where there used to be “sister.”  Not only that, you can’t help but imagine the new life your sister might be having, or is going to have, and perhaps, by comparison….bleh?  Perhaps it’s time to add something new.  Don’t drop your friends or your phone or the book you meant to read, but choose some new way to add change to your own life.  If there was one organization or cause you’d like to volunteer for above all others, why not do that this summer?  Animal rescue, inner-city tutoring, Habitat for Humanity….  Some new way to grow or enhance yourself?  Voice lessons, play reading, pottery classes, scuba diving class…  Some new place or plans that you and your friends could do together?  In other words, it doesn’t have to be just your sister who is going to be adding all this new stuff to her life; you’ll also have more to tell her once she’s at the University and is missing home.