My Sweet Jellybean,

I just wanted to make absolutely sure you know that I wasn’t talking about you. I wasn’t, you know. You don’t do that. You don’t call me up expecting me to cheerfully listen to your problems, and help you through your life, and console your failures and miseries. You know I don’t think that. You know that I want you to be happy with me or sad with me or whatever you feel like being. Because I know that I can be happy with you and sad with you. It’s an equality thing. It’s a mutual thing.

You know who I was talking about, right? S., especially lately calls with his problems. He likes my perspective, he says. But that little bit of flattery is wearing really thin. For the past few weeks he’s been calling two or three times a week with some new kind of crisis and expecting me to listen. Hhm? He’s not even really looking for advice, now that I think of it. He just wants somebody to dump on. And yesterday, it wasn’t just him. It was three people who called to tell me about their miseries. Perhaps these people think that misery loves company and I love misery so I must love the company of other miserable people. They are wrong.

I get so tired sometimes of being the one people call when they have problems. Sometimes, they don’t even ask me how I am. Or if they do it’s a cordial “how are you” waiting for me to say fine and then ask them how they are so that they can dump on me that they are taken advantage of at work, that they are underappreciated at home, that their wives have gone crazy, that they are tormented their girlfriends are cheating on them, that they are tormented that they are cheating on their girlfriends, that their kid is sick, that they have to put off their vacations one more week, that their daddies never really loved them.

I’m beginning to sound like an ass. I can only assume – evidence must save me – that I’m not an ass because people have always called me with problems. Because people have always said they like my perspective. There’s no question in my mind of course that, if I am a physician, I must be the physician that couldn’t heal himself. I think I am great with other people’s problems and the truth is I don’t really mind usually. I’m thoroughly useless with my own problems.

But yesterday was a bad day. People’s miseries were piling up on me. And when you called I was anxious. I’m sorry. But it has nothing to do with you. It was just too much. I think you believed me when I told you…but I just want to make absolutely sure that you know that I always have time for you and your life whether you’re having the best day in the world or the worst. Of course I do. Ok?

SS