Pull Up a Chair

If you have ever felt like the odd man out at a holiday gathering, this tiny healing meditation is just for that moment.

Your spouse’s family is crowded into the living room for their holiday party, and everybody in that room knows a joke you don’t. You’ve been standing near the doorway with the same glass of sparkling water for twenty minutes, smiling at stories about people you’ve never met. Every so often someone squeezes past you heading for the kitchen, and you move a little closer to the wall.

Those inside jokes took forty years to build. Nobody at that party expects you to catch up on all of them in one night, even when it feels like everyone’s watching to see whether you laugh at the right moments. You came to this party for someone you love, and standing in the doorway for twenty minutes is still showing up.

When you feel like the outsider, you start to believe you’re the only one. At almost every gathering, though, there’s at least one other person who’s off by themselves. It’s the cousin’s new boyfriend standing by the bookcase, or the oldest aunt in the armchair by the window, who hasn’t had anyone to talk to since she sat down.

Finding that person gives both of you somewhere to be. It also gets you out of the doorway, and a party is a lot easier to enjoy from a chair than from a spot against the wall. After one good conversation, the evening goes by a lot faster.

Look around wherever you are now, the way you’d look around a party for a familiar face. Take your time, and let your eyes land on the seat that’s farthest from the middle of the room.

Put a hand on the back of the nearest chair and slide it a few inches, the way you’d pull it up beside somebody. Listen to the legs scrape across the floor. If no chair is close by, rest one hand on the edge of whatever you’re sitting on.

Your Tiny Healing Habit today is called Pull Up a Chair. At a gathering where you feel like you’re on the edge, find the other person on the edge and pull up a chair beside them.

You don’t need a clever opening line. Asking if you can join them is plenty, and after that you can ask how they know the family.

Take the chair next to that aunt, and you’ll hear stories about this family that nobody else at the party is going to tell you.