call someone every other day

Because I have a few people who keep calling me during “peak” hours, my phone bill shot up close to two hundred dollars. And added up to a lot of wasted hours, in addition, where I’d be hanging onto the phone, waiting to hang up so I could do stuff.

Conclusion: I don’t need to call someone every other day, or even every week. I’m fine the way I am.

I look at this goal, and calling someone every other day suddenly strikes me as being excessive. This must seem weird to some, since I know people who must constantly talk on their cells or constantly get incoming calls. Yesterday, my phone kept ringing, and I just felt distracted and unsettled. Very hard to concentrate on my work at hand.

That being said, lately, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by friends I had not heard from in a while.

In order not to neglect the friends, I will mark on my calendar which friend/family to call each week and set aside time for that.

I’m not a really big phone person, and I may have to actually work up to this goal. I might start by making it a very easy goal of calling someone once a week.

I already feel a sort of dread just in making this goal. I’ve kept to myself for so long, and it’s comfortable for me.

In my grief, I spend a lot of time alone, by choice. I find it hard to be with people or around people, even strangers at a mall, without crying or feeling angry. Most people don’t understand the agony of having lost your child. And I don’t have it in me to just be “normal” or to exercise the attitude of “life goes on.” My two main comforts right now are my husband and my middle sister, who writes me long emails about what life’s all about and our memories growing up. We are rediscovering our sisterhood in this dip in my life.

1. Had lunch with my parents on their tree-cutting day. The next day hung out with them at the Nixon Library.

2. Had long conversations with Jo, who’s also expecting, about pregnancy issues and the questionable female anatomy.

March will be busy:
—sister’s wedding
—invite to celebrate colleague’s Teacher of the Year” lunch
—hang out with Viv
—hang out with Jo
—coffee with Gen?

I met my goal for this month. I brought my mother a bouquet of Asiatic lilies, tuberoses, roses and gerbera daisies for Valentine’s Day and gave them to her at her house. I took out my friend Eve for her belated birthday dinner, from December, at a tofu restaurant. My husband and I also had Chinese New Year’s dinner at my parents’ house. Then my sister stayed the weekend at our house and we spent a day at Disneyland, enjoying the rides to nostalgia.

This coming Saturday, we’ll celebrate sister’s 30th birthday at Shakey’s. Ironic that with so many trendy restaurants out there that she still prefers an old-time favorite.