Growing into Friendships {reflections}

We both remember the day. It was late October at the end of apple-picking time. Just as soon as the sun disappeared, the bitter cold seeped in. Everyone migrated toward the the towering bonfire or retreated to the house for warmth. I was a shy ten-year-old, prone to scurrying from shadow to shadow, from familiarity to familiarity, avoiding all the strangers or strangers with familiar faces. Yet at that year's apple cider party, I must have been braver or maybe one of the familiar strangers' face looked more familiar than strange because somehow I made a friend.

My experience with friendships have always been...awkward. Growing up, I was shy so for the longest time the only friend I had was my brother who was just older than me. I don't even know if I was capable of having any other friendship up till I was 10, but after that night, I did have a friend and no idea what one was supposed to do with such a delightful thing. It's been 13 years now. Somehow she's still my friend, and I still don't quite know how friendships and friends are supposed to work, but this particular one has grown from situational to much more. The last few months, especially, have opened my eyes to the true worth of a good friendship.

I think we all have that vision of 'kindred spirits' when we seek friendships. We have an idea of what a 'best' friend would look like, and oftentimes, those images are a lot like us. We dismiss people or the potential in people because off the bat, we don't have enough in common, but maybe the best friendships have more to do with shared values and less to do with shared interests. Because if friendships were based only on interests, I don't quite know why this friendship has lasted.

We're different. Like...in a lot of ways. She's 3-years older than I in the middle of 9 (10?) kids [I'm the youngest of 5]. I like things more strictly structured. She is more spur of the moment. I'm organized, mostly. She isn't as much. Somehow she's the optimist, and I play the pessimist. Yet she packs the first aid kits, and I imagine scenarios where she falls off those cliff edges and rocks she's always scrambling on out in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception [But I don't think about bringing a first aid kit].  A few times in the past months, our conversations have wandered to how we process and view life, and she asked: "How are we even friends??"

Growth. Through a lot of growth. Not just the fighting tooth and nail kind-of growth, but the dancing kind-of growth, the 'God isn't finished with me' kind-of growth [which is really the best sort. I think if you're ever discouraged and don't feel close to God, see if you're struggling, if you're growing. As long as you're scrambling about in the mud and not lying in stagnant water, I think you're good]. And in this growth, I have become immensely grateful.

It's not that everything is easy now or I've 'become so patient with this person's quirks'. I don't mean it that way at all. Yes, a person in a relationship might grow, but more times than not, it's you [and I had my share of stubborn, sharp edges to dull down]. You learn about yourself and are honest with what's actually going on inside. This knowledge helps you have the compassion to see beneath other people's outward actions to their heart. And your pride needs a few kicks. Naw, these people aren't less annoying, your superiority complex has been shot full of holes and God has let you catch a glimpse of them through His eyes and not through your inward-tilting ones. Humility and vulnerability are great for a friendship's foundation.

Honestly, though, one of the best qualities I share with this friend is we both make everything so much more fun: whether it be burying dead mice and dog ashes or lugging way too many rocks or hacking down thistles in the middle of the summer or going through papers or reorganizing book shelves or raking leaves or bringing in pumpkins from the garden or washing walls or painting rooms or weeding in the early morning. 10/10 recommend finding a friend like this or becoming one. Because of that...

This friendship has taught me more about living intentionally in community, rather than being dragged about by the busyness of our culture. It's easy in this day and age to say we don't have time for friendship because we probably don't, and it's easy to put a fence around friendship as something that happens in a set time on Saturday afternoons or a movie one evening or sporadic texts through really, really busy periods of our life. I understand the temptation because I do love the safety of structure, the safety of predictability, the safety of knowing when you can take off the mask and be your messy self again -- usch, but the truth is I like showing my best self. Whenever I'm stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, or cranky, I'm going to close myself off more often than not, but sometimes that's when I need this type of friendship, community, the most.

It's an hour round trip to where my friend lives which is probably the farthest I ever drive unless I'm going on an actual trip. The whole community idea takes a certain degree of intention because of the distance. If you're going to the same college, living in the same neighborhood, going to the same church, or are housemates, family, etc., then it's easier to cultivate friendships that are actually the 'I'm choosing to live life WITH you' type of ones, but as we grow older and create our individual lives, those friendships will be less and less easy to just have. There won't be anything convenient or easy about them, but oh, these are the best kind!

After 13 years, I think we're [or I am, to be honest] finally getting over the messy 'I'm swallowed in life. I can't show up' obstacle. A couple weeks ago, we were going to get together, but she sent me an overwhelmed text the night before so...[full disclosure: there was still some internal groaning and growing-- "There's so much I need to do. I can't do this." Let's be honest, there will always be things we need to do, BUT people over productivity. Acts of love over accomplishments. There's nothing that makes your burden seem smaller than when you go to lighten someone else's]...I made dinner early and went to her house after work to help her with projects. Last week she came to my house after work and helped me transport a bunch of rocks from one place to another [don't ask] and actually saw the worth in what I was doing [You know you've got a good friend when you both 'ooh' and 'aww' over different rocks, BUT they were cool and not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill rocks]. Yeah, sure, neither of us needed to do these things. We'd both probably get over our breakdowns and keep on keeping on, but living life in community is a gift, a privilege. We get to love people, and through loving people, we get to love Jesus!

Sometimes we dismiss God's fingerprints in our lives because it seems 'too coincidental', but lately I've wondered if God has sustained this friendship through all these years for such a time as this. We might have sowed the first seeds of friendship thirteen years ago and over time wondered why we even kept the thing alive as our paths pulled farther and farther apart, but now, now it's showing that its foundation might have been slow in forming but is truly a shelter and a safe place. Sometimes we have a picture-perfect view of friendship, but the view doesn't often include the nitty gritty work, the commitment to honesty and communication, the patience and presence, the pain.

Maybe the kind of friendships we want most are ones we have to grow into, but if we give ourselves the time to grow and have the willingness to change, there's nothing more precious than growing WITH someone else. Being polished and changed and then looking up and realizing that person is still beside you. Friendship is more sacred than we treat it. Yes, we'll have the kind of friendships where we only go to movies or out to dinner or are always 'do something' with people, and then there will be the friendship where we get to live messy life, not just our highlight reel, with someone else. The best part is we get to adventure with these people. We get to work and we get to be. We get to commune and we get to wrestle. We get to borrow God's eyes to see them with and God's love to remind them who they've been created to be, and it goes both ways.