Carolyn Hax: Surrounded by self-absorption

Dear Carolyn: How can I approach lunch with my self-absorbed sister who is visiting from out of town when I am in the midst of separating from my self-absorbed husband? I probably won’t mention my separation because she will have a random friend with her. What can I say to myself to keep from screaming? – Mired in Self-Absorption

No doubt this lunch has passed, awkwardly but less awfully than you feared, and I’m guessing you picked at a few shallow topics then heaved a sigh of relief at the end.

Or it was sharp and judgy and you’re still smarting from it.

Either way, it’s behind you, and with any luck it nudged you a little closer to recognizing that a lousy lunch and a lousy separation are things you can get through if you must, even if you rely solely on the mercy of the passage of time.

If you’re ready, though, you can do better: You can choose to stop caring so much how things go.

It was lunch! So what if it derailed. So what if a “random friend” was there too – you could still have said, “Husband and I are separating.” You care what the friend thinks? Why?

If you didn’t like how your sister reacted, then you could have responded with anything from “I didn’t expect you to take it well” to “How ’bout those Yankees?” (Spearing a bit of salad.) If you didn’t want to give your reasons, you could have said, “Because he wouldn’t clean the cat box,” especially if you don’t have a cat.

Or, you could have chosen to say nothing of the separation because you didn’t feel like saying anything – not because you dreaded your sister’s reaction or fretted about how you’d appear.

Or you could have spilled it all and been caught off-guard by a thoughtful response from a sister you learned not to count on, or from the virtual stranger she brought with her. You don’t know till you know.