What I’ve learned about friendship over the years

As I’ve been traveling through “True Friend,” the latest Take Up & Read scripture study, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my views of friendship have changed throughout my life. I have a few scant memories of my earliest neighborhood friends in McHenry, Illinois – a wispy, freckled girl named Chelsea as well as visions of another freckled face framed with dark hair that belonged to a girl named Katie.

Then when I was 8, we moved to Georgia and I met Stephanie and Mari. Mari would become one of my lifelong friends; we chatted on the phone just this week and have plans for a coffee date in the next few days. Stephanie and I eventually lost touch. That happens with some friends, and that’s okay. I still cherish all the memories I have of us together, and I’ll always be thankful for her friendship. Last I heard she was living a fast-paced life as a Secret Service agent. Meanwhile, I’m back at the ranch with a house full of kids.

When I was younger, I preferred having just a few close friends. I’d hop on my bike and ride over to their homes after school. Sometimes they’d head over to my house, so we could swim in my family’s pool (and do elaborate water ballet routines to classical music blaring over a boombox; yes, I’m old).

I also spent a lot of time playing sports with my younger brother and his friends (while totally crushing over one particular neighborhood boy who would eventually give me my first kiss when I was almost a sweet 16). But some of my best “friends” were the horses I would ride and the words I would write in myriad childhood journals. I was a child who enjoyed playing with others but who also needed plenty of time to be alone with my thoughts. Both writing and horseback riding provided the retreats I needed.

Once I entered middle school and became a teenager, my circle of friends expanded. I was often the goofy friend, quick to make others laugh. Ironically, my class clown self was unleashed during a time when I was really hurting inside. The middle school years were rough for me. On certain days of the week I would ride a different school bus directly to the stable where I rode horses, and there was a group of vicious boys who would stomp their sneaker-clad feet at me and whinny mockingly calling me, “Horsy girl!” That was embarrassing enough, but there was worse name-calling as well: Boys oinking at me, someone close to me taunting me with the nickname “Miss Piggy,” and a few boys commenting on a rash that sprouted on my (hairy) legs and asking if I had leprosy. After that I wore jeans even on the hottest, Georgia days.

Despite all this, I had loyal girlfriends. Mari and Stephanie were still around, and they were far more popular and allowed me in their inner circle. I also met Lili around this time. She was smart and impervious to the cruel social caste system of middle school. She ice skated and tried to teach me how (I once busted my chin trying to imitate one of her graceful spins). I met a lot of other girlfriends around this time, and we could keep in touch throughout high school and sporadically even as adults. I became close to a funny and popular girl in middle school, and we traded a notebook back and forth with BFFs scribbles on it. Somehow I started getting invited to dance parties although I was rarely asked to dance and would stand by, watching the pretty girls and wondering why I couldn’t be more like them and feeling stuck in a body I didn’t like.

Long-time blog followers (O, remnant few!) and those who have read Weightless probably already know this about me, but I experienced one of those Cinderella, ugly-duckling-turned-swan stories. The summer after my freshman year of high school, I finally blossomed, grew a bit, started running, and the culmination of it all resulted in me losing what those who loved me called my “baby fat” (less kind people just called me fat as if that was all I was – skin and a fat body). I remember going to my sophomore orientation and having some peers not even recognize me. It felt unreal, wonderful, and unsettling at the same time. I quickly gained new girlfriends who wondered what my “secret” was (go through puberty extra late). I also garnered new admirers of the opposite sex; some of them were the very same boys who mercilessly teased me in middle school. I was conflicted about my new flock of friends. Why hadn’t they liked me or even noticed me before? I was still the same goofy, dreamy drama queen who loved to write, read, and ride horses. My body quickly morphed into my social capital – the fluency I had some control over that could help me earn and keep friends.

I was fortunate that I did have some authentic friends. Mari, Stephanie, Lili,  Misti, Monica, some of my “Slumber Slam” peeps, etc. stuck by me no matter the shape of my body, but as a young adult, friendship was confusing. It often didn’t feel real or rooted in anything other than how I looked and acted on the outside.

College, on the other hand, was quite freeing for me. I made the decision to not join a sorority, which was rather unusual at the big, Southern university I was attending. I focused on community service, my academics (I was in my university’s honors program and loved my classes as a journalism major with a minor in theatre), and having a few close friends and having great roommates (I met my closest college friend during a study abroad trip to Italy, and we still keep in touch) and later a boyfriend whom I foolishly thought was the one, but my Catholic prince ended up turning into a toad. That heartbreak ended up being a blessing since it led me to be alone for a year before being reunited with my now-husband (we dated briefly in high school; he was one of the nice guys).

As a newlywed, I was very fortunate because my husband and my dear friend Lili ended up attending the same medical school. I was invested in my new marriage, but I also had a close girlfriend to run with and to enjoy occasional girls’ nights together.

It wasn’t until I became a mother, and my husband’s training resulted in a few moves when I started to feel isolated and lonely. I’d felt that way before, of course, as a young girl and a teenager, but it was for different reasons. I was teased when I was younger and as a teenager, I sensed a lot of my so-called friends weren’t true friends at all. Quantity over quality made me feel lonely even when I was surrounded by “friends.”

As a young mom, I’d started finding support online in Catholic homeschooling group, and I connected with so many like-minded friends, but it wasn’t enough. It never is. We need real human connection that transcends a relationship nourished within the confines of a smartphone. Thankfully, I became close with another resident’s wife who had two young girls, and sometimes we would just push our strollers through the local mall to get out of the house and to escape the ennui of reading monosyllabic books over and over and scraping off crud from highchairs.

When my husband finished his training and we moved to a new town, I was homeschooling three young girls and was pregnant with my fourth. After being hospitalized with preterm labor, I received a pregnancy bed rest mandate. The prison sentence ended up lasting a long 10 weeks. I’ve never been more lonely. I was in a new town and knew no one. I had young children to care for, and no friends to come sit by my side. I retreated to the computer and this blog. I even received care packages from online friends. But I still felt very much alone, especially since my husband was working long hours, adjusting to a new job, and because I was homeschooling. So I started to pray for friends – in-the-flesh friends whom I could call in the middle of the night if I had to, friends who would bring meals during bed rest or other trying times. It took about two years, but two moms around my age eventually moved to my same street. We hit it off so well. I could be my nerdy, socially awkward self around them. They cared for me and loved me in such a true way. They still do.

{I want to take this moment just to mention that I couldn’t possibly mention all of my dear friends by name. I have running pals, church friends, and others who bless me very much.}

These days I find myself not really wanting anymore friends. I know that might sound cold or like I’m ungrateful, but I often feel over-extended and over-leveraged and like I couldn’t possibly add anything (or anyone) else to my social calendar.  In fact, as I read the Scripture passages from the first day of the “True Friend” study, I wanted to argue with “woe to the solitary person” from Ecclesiastes 4:9 because as a mom of five, including two competitive athletes, with a calendar brimming with activities and very little margin for down time coupled with a wonderful but omnipresent toddler – not to mention the nearly constant chatter of texts and the siren of Smart Phone notifications, solitude sounds heavenly. Take my phone away and put me in a hermitage with a few books and a journal, and I’ll see you in a few months.

I’m living a life that constantly takes me out of the home, and I’m frequently surrounded by people vying for my attention, my love, my milk (Todzilla Charlie remains a dedicated nursling), my text and email responses, my energy, and the rare blank spaces in my calendar. Because of my current season, it’s easy for me to forget how much I, like every human being whether introverted, extroverted, or somewhere in between, needs real connection. We’re not meant to do this life alone and even if we’re seeing people all daylong, we’re still at risk of loneliness if we don’t have any true friends or if we fail to continue to cultivate those special friendships we do have. We need others to help us along. So just because I’m “busy,” I can’t neglect the amazing friendships I’ve been blessed with – the friends who have stuck with me for so long, the authentic friends who love me unconditionally, the friends whom I have prayed mightily for. It would be easy to hole up and cruise along while things are busy and rather uneventful, but what happens when I fall? How can I expect these friends to just be there when I haven’t put much effort into letting them know how much I appreciate them and care about our relationship?

Who knows where you’re at? Maybe you’re pining for friends and are courting fantasies of making your escape from your LEGO-strewn home and not finally not having to make it through one more episode of Daniel’s Tiger Neighborhood.

Perhaps you’ve recently moved and you feel lonely and wish you could make a few good friends.

Maybe your social circle overwhelms you right now, and you need to carve out some space to be alone.

Or do you find yourself with a gaggle of Facebook friends but not one single person who could hold your hand during a difficult medical procedure?

Or maybe you’re satisfied with your friendships.

Wherever you find yourself in terms of friends, here are a few things I’ve learned so far in this lovely and encouraging Scripture study of friendship as well in my own life in terms of true friendship:

• You’re never too busy for good friends. Even when you feel like you just want to crawl away and hide from all homo sapiens, it’s necessary to nourish your special friendships. In Getting Past Perfect, I discuss how one of my friends and I have talked about how sad it is that so many of us use the excuse of being too busy to cultivate real friendships. It’s true that my evenings belong to my family now. This is when I begin the schlepping to sports and make a herculean effort to eat dinner as a family. I gave up monthly book club night a few years ago, but I’m still very intentional about tending a few of my closest friendships. Some of my friends and I wake up at 5:15 am a few times a week to run and talk together. I have other friends whom I call a few times a month to catch up. Some neighborhood friends and I get our kids together occasionally and reconnect while they play. For several years, I belonged to a women’s Bible study group as well, and I was able to open up to these women about some of my fears and insecurities, and they have lifted me up with their faith and support. Life is busy, but we must make time for maintaining friendships. I need my girlfriends in my life because they can read me and understand me in a way that my wonderful husband, God bless him, cannot. Depending on your history and personality, you might have one close friend, a far-reaching sorority of sisters, or a handful of close pals. Make a list of your true friends, and let them know how important they are to you. It doesn’t take all that much to text a friend, to send her a birthday card, or to give her a call once a month. I’m not a big phone person, but I do try to call friends I don’t get to see often or to at least send them birthday cards or occasional emails and/or texts. I never had a biological sister, but God has blessed me with sisters in Christ. I can’t take these friendships for granted. I have to be grateful for them and make time for them.

 

• If you find yourself pining for an authentic friend—the kind you’d never have to clean your house for—pray about how you might find her. Elizabeth Foss also beautifully shares that “the best friendship strategy is living out the commandment to love someone the way you want to be loved” and “the whole endeavor to make friends might [go better] if [we focus] on being a friend” rather than simply trying to make friends. I have to remind myself now that just because I feel satisfied with my number of friends, I should still always seek to love my neighbor and to reach out to others who might be feel isolated and lonely like I’ve felt in the past. Friendship isn’t just about me and me being loved; it’s about me learning how to love and having the opportunity to serve others.

 

• Seek out at least some friends of faith. I’ve always prided myself in having a diverse group of friends. Even in high school, I didn’t belong to just one exclusive clique. I hung out with fellow thespians, my mock trial team, as well as some of the more classically cool kids. This remains true today. I have a close girlfriend who has returned to school to get her PhD and who doesn’t have any children. I have a friend with four young children who also balances a career as a physician while being very involved in missionary work with her church. I have at-home mom friends, and a mom who is an uber entrepreneur and founded designed her own fashion line. I have some friends who share my worldview – political leanings, parenting style, and all. I have others who don’t. This helps me grow. Yet, it’s also very important to have some friends with whom you can share your faith journey with – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Those friends on my street I mentioned – well, we can talk about chic shoes, our maternal worries, and God. I pray for them. They pray for me. It’s a beautiful thing. Just recently I met for coffee with a Catholic mom I greatly admire, and it was such a providential get-together. I leaned on her very much. She’s helped me many times in my spiritual life (and beyond). I also met a woman at a recent Catholic women’s conference I spoke at, and we just hit it off. We have similar hearts and struggles, and now we text at least once a week and offer our prayers for one another. I have know doubt God brought this sweet friend into my life for a reason. Seek friends out from your parish and, yes, from the online Catholic community. This is where social media really can be a blessing because you can find a unity of faith, and you won’t feel so alone and like you’re swimming upstream with all of your crazy Catholic, pro-life, Rosary-clasping, and frequently counter-cultural beliefs. Your sisters in Christ not only help you feel not so alone, but you can likewise “provoke one another to love and [do] good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). Close friends of virtue can help to encourage you in living your faith and gift you with the beautiful opportunity to serve others and to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

 

• If you long for authentic friends, start by being authentic yourself. If you’re afraid of others’ perceptions of you, then it will be difficult to make genuine friends that you don’t have to ever be a chameleon for, feeling like you have to blend in or fit in. When I felt all I had to offer the world was my skin as a young woman, I attracted some people who saw me as nothing more than an object or a pretty face (thankfully, I also had true friends who were loyal to me and loved me as a human being, not a human body or a human doing). Authentic friendship cannot be rooted in the fear of what others might think of you, your career, the state of your home, or what you feed your family. It must be rooted in love, trust, and acceptance. Authenticity means scratching beneath the Instagram surface and recognizing the humanity there. It means accepting we’re all a part of the broken but beautiful body of Christ and giving others permission to be less than perfect. Instead of being rejected—what I fear might happen if I put my imperfect self out there – I’ve found I’m embraced when I send apology texts for my incessant rambling, or I admit my kids sometimes drive me crazy. When we let our guard down, others can see us for who we really are. We’re not superwomen. We are humans who depend upon God’s supernatural grace. In this day and age of highly curated social media feeds, we are hungrier than ever for imperfect authenticity.

• Don’t underestimate the friendships you have within your family. I often tell my teenage daughter that right now my job isn’t to be her friend but that I pray and hope that one day that’s just what we will be – very good friends. I can say that today I am friends with both my mom and dad. I’m also very close to my younger brother, and I have two wonderful sister-in-laws and a lovely mother-in-law to boot. Sometimes when my kids are squabbling with one another I remind them to be kind to each other and to really work on their sibling relationships because siblings are gifts and friends for life. Some other friends will sadly come and go. There are friendships that we will discover weren’t grounded in unconditional love or anything beyond superficial ties, but siblings are here to stay and we share a special bond. My good friend Mari used to fight a lot with her sisters (I remember the fights at her house as a child because my brothers and I just didn’t fight like that with so much passion and hair-pulling). Now all that said, if you’re an only child and/or you just don’t have particularly strong familial bonds for whatever reason, don’t despair. As Proverbs 18:24 reminds us, “Some friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.” Since I don’t have biological girlfriends, some of my friends have become like sisters to me. Mari, my childhood friend, was my maid of honor, and we shared our mothering journeys together (including all the grit and gore of labor!). She’s really is like family to me as are some of my other close friends.

 

• Pray for your friends. Something I’ve loved about the “True Friend” study is that each day includes space to write the names and intentions of people you want to pray for (I also love it because it’s not tied to a particular liturgical season like a Lent devotional, for instance, so you can pick it up at any time and make it work for where you are right now). So often I utter the words, “I’m praying for you,” and then I go about the busy business of living and when I do sit down to pray, I can’t always remember all the people I’ve promised to remember in my prayers, or a toddler or sibling squabble distracts me completely. Yet, having an actual space in the devotional to be intentional about my prayers for others is so fruitful. Offering prayers on behalf of friends is such a beautiful gift and a way to honor my friendship with them and to show gratitude for all that they have given me.

 

I could write a lot more about my own evolution of friendship, how wonderful each of my friends are to me and how they truly are “sturdy shelters” and “life-saving medicine” to me (Sirach 6:41-17), and further lessons in friendship, but this is already an epic-long blog post so I’ll spare you. My tendency toward verbosity helps explain why blogging has taken a backburner to writing actual books! If you actually took the time to read this post in its entirety, I salute you. Leave a comment so you can get further kudos, and thank for being a friend to this blog and the murmurs of my heart!