True Friendship

December 8, 2014 | My Jottings

Good Monday morning! It’s beautiful in my neck of the woods today — a very fluffy two inches of snow has fallen, and every twig and branch is covered. I went outside last night to let Edith and Mildred go potty, and some of the flakes falling were the size of quarters.

Have you read any of Shauna Niequist’s books? I thought her Bread and Wine was one of the most honest, inspiring and comforting books I’ve ever read. Now I’m reading Shauna’s Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life, and as I read last night before being afraid to go to sleep (more on that later), this paragraph on friendship was a balm on my soul:

“True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they’ll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives to us. Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it’s something else, but if it’s really love, really friendship, it’s a little scary around the edges.”  p. 50, Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist

I think one of the reasons this paragraph struck me as it did, is because I have always had this lurking core belief that if people stuck around long enough, they would eventually leave. Not knowing the seeds they were planting, my parents used to tell me when I was a little girl that I would never have any friends if I didn’t stop being so bossy. I thought I was just directing and helping things along when I would tell my friends what we were going to play and how, but this began to nurture in me a false belief that I was not worthy enough, interesting enough, for people to be friends that would stick around forever. I have other good reasons to have this icky, corrupt core belief, even if it’s a false one. I do not embrace this belief at all, but do all I can to make it shrivel and die. It has definitely shriveled over the decades. It used to be this big, juicy poisonous thing, watermelon-sized. In my thirties it had shrunk to the size of a prune. I think it’s pretty much like a raisin now. Shriveled and small, yes, but not completely dried up yet.

Maybe someday when my skin is as dry and shriveled as the two exquisitely beautiful women friends pictured above, all my crippling thoughts and ways will have completely dried up as well.

In the meantime, I’m grateful for books written by brave and transparent people who come alongside, so to speak, and whisper kindly, “You are not alone…..”