Day: August 13, 2026

We are not all crazy on the same day.  —Anne Lamott

We all endure those days when the world feels crazy and then we ask ourselves if we are actually the ones who are unhinged. Self doubt is a natural human trait and the more we stew alone with our worries the more likely we are to feels as though something is terribly wrong with our entire lives. Billions of words have been written about long suffering people who become victims of their own fears and thoughts. We see ourselves in King Lear and Don Quixote and wonder if we have finally gone around a bend from which we may never return. That is when special friends swoop in to reassure us that our discomfort is only a phase.

I have been an educator for well over fifty years. Sometimes my title was official and other times I offered tutoring or work with homeschooled children. At the beginning of my career in public schools I encountered a world of young people who were enduring unimaginable cruelty and want. I became obsessed with helping them to feel the comfort and security that was the hallmark of my own childhood. In the process I lost sleep at night and worried to the point of feeling overwhelmed. It was in that moment that one of my dearest friends and her husband rescued me with an intervention at a Tex Mex restaurant while we sipped on margaritas and munched on salsa and tortilla chips. 

She and her husband had noted how entwined I had become with the difficulties of the children who were in my care each day. They realized that my concern for them was eating away at me. They saw that the situation was driving me crazy and so they interceded to help me see the futility of my ever present worries. Their dedicated friendship saved me from feeling a need to abandon my career for self preservation. 

Our friendship was mutual. They had not been crazy on the days when I was allowing my emotions to rule me but there would be times later when I would be the healthy one who helped them through incredibly difficult times. I suppose that is the way friendships are. We went back and forth looking out for each other and overlooking the flaws the lead us to crazy moments. Like firefighters and doctors in emergency rooms we are on call twenty four hours a day for the people that we had learned to trust and love. We can be crazy with the special people in our lives and they will not hold it against us. 

I suppose that my husband and I have that same kind of special bond. Events can lead me to obsessive worries that either leave me brooding like a slug or hyperventilating with indignation. My spouse knows when to listen and how to bring me back to earth. We read each other so well that our crazy moments become outlets that allow us to emote and then return to sanity. 

I know who to call when the world becomes too much with me. The good friend who helped me long ago is no longer on this earth but I have found others who seem to understand my crazy moments. Her daughter has become like a member of my family. She and I can rant as needed that then just hug and love each other. I have found a childhood friend that I had not seen for decades and now feel the same comfort with her that was so ever present when we were children. I have connections with so many people who are as human as I am in dealing with the stresses of life. Sometimes I am the one who needs a calm ear to vocalize my frustrations and sometimes I am the person who listens to them. 

Friendships and family relationships are not measured by how much we agree with each other but how willing we are to understand when any of us are feeling crazy. Life is daunting and nobody is free of anxieties. Even stoics come undone now and again. Having people who are not crazy on the same day that we are is a blessing beyond measure. Knowing that we can mess up and still be loved helps us to recenter ourselves time and again. 

We are all crazy at one time or another. Thankfully we are rarely all crazy at the same time. The world fluxes and flows and we find the special people who will let us cry or rant. The humanity of it all keeps us focused on what is important. 

I do not generally like the word crazy. My mother was overwhelmed with a medical condition that altered her brain resulting in symptoms of bipolar disorder. Her emotions would go haywire now and again but she was not sick every single day. Her wisdom and kindness fought its way through the fog of her illness with the help of good doctors and certain medications. She learned the hard way who would accept her just as she was. Some who had seemed to be friends abandoned her and others were so courageous that they literally saved her. 

Ann Lamott understands the nature of all humans. We stress and become anxious and find ourselves feeling crazy. Luckily it does not usually happen to everyone on the same day. That is when we learn who the special people in our lives really are. Without judgement they come to our aid remembering that we one day will come to theirs.