MY PARACHUTE PACKER (AKA WHO PACKS YOUR PARACHUTE PART 2)

I rang my little sister Ang on Sunday for a quick chat.

You will remember Ang from Blog 20 – Who Packs Your Parachute. Post car accident, I’ve tried not to bother Ang too much with my lunatic rantings. I mean, everyone has their own stuff going on, and there are only so many times you can ring someone and say, ‘You will NOT believe what has happened now,’ before they start screening your calls.

Well, Sunday I was pissed off.

My intention was to call Ang briefly.

Huh. Did I just say briefly?

One hour, 35 minutes and 33 seconds later, I hung up the phone.

Apparently, my version of a ‘quick chat’ now has the running time of a feature film.

I needed my parachute packer front and centre. I needed her to listen to, well… everything. Everything that had been stored away in my little gut, heart, chest and head, all crammed in there like an overstuffed suitcase you have to sit on to get the zip closed.

And on Sunday, the zip broke.

I needed to forget about all the ‘I, me, mine and my’ for a while and dump the whole bloody lot on her so it could become an ‘us, we and our’ problem.

Very generous of me, really.

‘Congratulations, Ang. You are now the proud co-owner of my emotional baggage.’

And, as she always does, she took it completely in her stride. And, as she always does, she made me feel that I was not alone.

She let me purge everything I had been holding onto without interrupting, judging, fixing or somehow turning it around and making it about her.

I talked.

And talked.

And talked some more.

I’m fairly certain at some point she could have put the phone down, made herself a cup of tea, watched an episode of something on Netflix, come back and I still would have been mid-sentence.

The worst part?

I don’t think I even asked how she or the family were going.

Not once.

I know she has her own stuff happening. Her own worries, frustrations, responsibilities and probably a list of things she could quite happily rant about herself.

But Sunday wasn’t my finest moment in the ‘being a considerate sister’ department.

I was ready to jump out of the plane, and I needed my parachute packed immediately.

So, Ang packed it.

No fuss. No judgement. No invoice for emotional labour.

She just listened, reassured me, made me laugh and somehow helped turn the enormous disasters spinning around in my head into something that felt a little more manageable.

Sometimes your parachute packer doesn’t fix the plane.

They don’t stop you having to jump.

They simply make sure that when you do, you’re not hurtling towards the ground alone.

Thanks, Ang.

And next time I ring for a ‘quick chat’…

Maybe clear your afternoon.