Marian

I really did try, and sometimes my efforts paid off. One afternoon, my roommates had all scattered for the Fourth of July weekend, leaving the apartment in my capable hands, so I decided to have people over. I called three girls and asked if they’d like to bake chocolate saucepan cookies with me while we listened to one of the audio books required for class. A great idea, I thought, until I realized that listening to the tape meant that we wouldn’t be talking while we baked, which was a little awkward.

Nonetheless, everybody seemed to have a good time, especially Marian, who came with her roommate Heidi. In fact, after Heidi left, Marian asked if I wanted to walk to the mall with her so that she could drop something in the mail. I said sure.

I think Marian was a little lonely. She’d come to the States for school, and I think she felt a little out of step, maybe a little culture shocked. By hanging out that afternoon, I had done something a little like inviting a starving woman over for dinner. After strolling around the mall talking about food and her boyfriend and her native China, I had a hard time drawing the afternoon to a close, and I felt unbelievably guilty for trying.

The next week, at the end of one of our classroom discussions, Sheryl sent us out in groups of three to discuss self-esteem and write down things we liked about each other (we did that a lot) and just generally share, and I joined in with Marian and my roommate Christa.

Marian was the last to share, and when she began, she seemed desperate to talk. She talked about how lonely she felt and how she missed her best friend back in China, how she hadn’t talked to her in so long. And as she spoke, her beautiful, clear, friendly eyes filled with tears.

Christa responded appropriately; she knew enough to hug a person who was crying. But I just sat there, unsure. I didn’t know how to hug a sitting person. And Marian continued to cry, all the while looking at me, and I felt her asking me for something, something I didn’t know how to give.

I felt like a machine that I didn’t know how to operate. I didn’t know how to click this button or wiggle this joystick to make myself know what Marian needed and how to help her. So I laid my hands on the table between us in a desperate attempt to communicate thereness.

Here I sat with someone who needed something from me, and I just couldn’t find it. And I felt that I was hurting her. I felt that I had failed.

When I remember this now, I think about that deep disappointed feeling, that feeling of wishing I were better and wishing I could get the last five minutes back. But I think that when you're doing something new, or doing anything at all really, sometimes you just fail. You just come up short. And I have a little compassion for my former self, that girl who was realizing she was in over her head a little in this making-new-friends thing. It's not fun to fail, especially when you feel like you're failing other people. But being in over your head is the only way to get taller.