Gems in the Mine of Life

I’ve been through some recent LifeStuff, both organizational and personal, that has taught me some new things about friendships.

What is a friendship? It’s a relationship of choice between 2 people with mutual give and take. It’s one where I know the other person’s business to a higher degree than a stranger or an acquaintance. The better I experientially know a person, the more common experiences we have together, and the deeper we dive into what matters to us in life, the closer the friend. It’s not just about how much time we spend together or in the same location. That may be unique to women I suppose. Chime in, manfolk!

I am blessed to have several good friends. Real friends, the kind I can call at 3 AM when I’m in a physical or emotional crisis. Friends who aren’t just willing to watch my children, but love them like their own. And friends who could finish my sentences but don’t . . .

I should add that my best friends don’t agree with me on everything all the time. They voted differently than I did, they dress differently, and they, like I, love those differences. In my closest friendships, our disagreements make us stronger together, and I think it’s the way we deal with those disagreements that makes all of the difference. In any relationship, there is always tension between selfless sensitivity to the other person and feeling free to be myself uninhibited. And that balance is so easy to get out of whack — either I become so sensitive to the other person that suddenly I find myself offended, or walking on eggshells to avoid hurting her. Or I am so insensitive to the other person that she finds herself in that pickle on the other side of that coin.

It’s not that there can’t be different mixes of sensitivity and self-ness at different times or with different friends, but that mix has to be sustainable. Too much energy required to uphold one end of the deal, and sadly, our consumer culture tells us to drop a member of the tribe like a hot batata (Vote him off! You’re fired!) With such an emphasis on individualism (and family units in the Midwest where I live), longstanding deep friendships can be hard to cultivate and harder to keep.

How thankful I am for great friends who want to talk it out, want to reveal the heart behind what I’m saying, and are willing to challenge me when they think I’m out of line, untrue to myself, or being inconsistent. I cherish these gems in my life. We are all learning more about who we are as we interact over events and moments and decades, and are therefore able to approach certain danger zones with caution and knowing, as oppose to barreling down those roads with no seat belts and no road signs. While these emotional trips make new friendships interesting and fun, the more life throws at me, the more I appreciate the familiar, lovely and trustworthy patterns of longstanding friends.