Editor’s note: TCU College Girl asked me: do the readers really want to hear about the women’s retreat for six days? That’s how many posts I wrote while I was there. My response: well, maybe some people do. For those who are tired of this, I posted her rant about the TCU Hybrid Parking situation.

Disclaimer: With regard to other women on retreat, any personal descriptions and other details are changed.

This brings us to lunch and then onward to the afternoon of workshops. I know that I’m going to have to go to the afternoon group, because I can’t just hide the entire weekend long. The friend I came with might raise her eyebrows at me. And other women are, quite honestly, something that scares me at times. I’ve never been sure I’m completely lovable.

The first workshop, on grief, is quite inspiring; it turns out that others have endured hardships that are, on the surface, even worse than the stuff I complain about at my darkest moments, and on the other hand, others are still pretty disappointed about everyday stuff. I feel a relieved to learn this. And it turns out I don’t have to share anything. There were plenty of others who did so.

The last workshop of the afternoon is the wheel of kindness. “You have to do this one,” the friend I came with says. I’m not sure why I have to do it. Especially since she says she’s not going to.

Nevertheless, I’ve always hated to be seen as a coward, and so I walk into the room. The leaders begin giving instructions. It turns out that we will move in two big rings and compliment each other. We don’t have to worry about what to say, the leaders tell us, God will give us the words. And the complimentees will have their eyes shut. Okay, I think, if I don’t give a satisfying compliment, at least they won’t know it was me.

I start on the outside of the ring, giving the compliments. I lay my hands on each woman’s shoulders. Many of the women are friends with each other, so they know something nice to say, they don’t have to reach into the sub-ether, or some kind of shared, unconscious realm of knowledge, but I don’t know anyone. I can either give a compliment on physical appearance, or I can pray and wait for something to come into my head, say it, and hope it makes sense. I tell one woman wearing a red tank top … “you have a profound faith … and it that thing you are worried about, it will be all right.” I have no idea what she thinks of this.

When it’s my turn to be praised, I hear things these people could not know about me … again and again I am called patient. I am told that people at home love me but don’t remember to say so. I am told I am a good teacher. Several woman apparently likes my hair. At the end, I get the best gift. We have a comments time and some of the women stand and say what they thought of the wheel. The woman with the red tank top stands. “Thank you so much to whoever said I have a profound faith and it will be all right.” She sits down.

Wow, I guess that was the right thing to say. In that moment I feel, in this room of women I don’t know, that I am not alone at all.