We Live So Much of Our Lives Without Telling Anyone

On Friendship and Joseph Millar's "Telephone Repairman"

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Do you ever notice a theme surfacing in your life? Here's the one surfacing in mine: the small things are the big things. Sometimes, life can seem like a timeline marked only by big events: graduation, marriage, children, a promotion, loss, retirement, or a milestone birthday. Social media adds to this feeling since so much of what's shared online is like a highlight reel. It's easy for me to feel like I'm missing out if I'm not experiencing big events, even if I don't really want to experience them in the first place. No one wants to feel left out or uncelebrated. 

I've thought a lot about friendship this year. (Laura Tremaine has written a couple of books on the topic and makes for a great Instagram follow if you want to do some friendship deep-diving.) As an introvert, friendships don't always come easily to me. It can take a long time for me to feel comfortable with someone and to open up to them. Even in my established friendships, I find myself holding back sometimes. A friend might ask me how my week has been, and I won't know what to say. Someone may ask what I did over the weekend, and I'll say I did nothing, even though I obviously did something. 

I automatically keep a lot of things to myself. Part of that is because I'm introverted, but the other part is because I'm unsure who will care. When I ask about my friends' lives, I want to hear everything they want to tell me. I have no reason to believe my friends don't feel the same way about me, but relational habits can be hard to break. As I've considered friendship, I've thought about how I want (and need) to share more of my life with my friends. (That's partly why this Substack exists.) When interacting with a person I love, I try to remind myself that they care about all the moments in my life, not just the big ones. 

Last week, I ordered matching glass jars and labels to better organize and alphabetize my spice drawer. I finished this project last night, took a picture of the drawer, and sent it to my best friend, who responded excitedly. My spice drawer is not as thrilling as a birth, career change, or running a marathon, but I was happy about it, so I shared. The milestones in our lives are worth celebrating or mourning with our friends, but the everyday moments are, too. The small things are the big things. 

I think Joseph Millar agrees. Here's his poem “Telephone Repairman:” 

All morning in the February light
he has been mending cable, 
splicing the pairs of wires together
according to their colors, 
white-blue to white-blue
violet-slate to violet-slate, 
in the warehouse attic by the river. 

When he is finished
the messages will flow along the line: 
thank you for the gift, 
please come to the baptism, 
the bill is now past due: 
voices that flicker and gleam back and forth
across the tracer-colored wires. 

We live so much of our lives
without telling anyone, 
going out before dawn, 
working all day by ourselves, 
shaking our heads in silence
at the news on the radio. 
He thinks of the many signals
flying in the air around him
the syllables fluttering, 
saying please love me, 
from continent to continent
over the curve of the earth.

I've read this poem countless times over the years, but in my most recent reading, these lines were like a gut punch:

We live so much of our lives
without telling anyone.

I don't want that to be true for me. I want to share about my spice drawer. I want to share the latest book I'm reading or tell someone about the fantastic Americano I drank. And I want my friends to tell me about the candle they're burning or the flowers they planted or the t-shirt they keep wearing because it feels so good against their skin. The milestones will always get the most attention, but connection is found in our daily lives. All of it matters.