Day 17 of Write31Days
Oops, I missed a few days. I will chock it up to sheer exhaustion from a weekend full of football, church, and hosting a cider press/kid birthday party. Sometimes you just pass out on the couch at 9:00 pm and all your writing intentions get lost amidst your snores. It’s okay though. The achiever in me would like to write every single day of the challenge, but the part of me that’s still learning that people are always the priority, is taking solace in the fact that I was tired because I was busy being with and loving my people all weekend.
Anyway, something I wanted to talk about during this series about the surprises of adulthood, is the sometimes tender, land-mine filled territory of adult friendships. I’ve had friendships that just sort of fizzled after mutual connection points changed, or as we changed as people and found that we just didn’t really relate all that much to each others’ stories anymore. There are also the usual culprits of busyness, stress, selfishness, fatigue, and a million other reasons why it can be hard to make and keep friends. It’s not like in school where you had this habitat that put you together multiple days per week, where you could gravitate toward all the ones that were like you.
In adulthood, I’m finding that friendship, like everything good and worthwhile, takes effort. You actually have to call people, or if you’re my friend, text people. I’m much better on Voxer and texting that I am talking on the actual phone. You sometimes have to get a babysitter if you want to get beyond talking about the weather, how crazy your kids are driving you, and what you are making for dinner tonight. If a babysitter isn’t an option, you might have to find a time when you’re down a kid or two, so that actual conversation might be more of a possibility. Then you have to find a day and time that works for both of you, which can be difficult, as I’m finding out as the kids get older and more busy.
Sometimes it can seem like more effort than you can handle.
But, as it turns out, it’s all very worth it.
This afternoon I got to sit across the table from a friend who gets me. I confessed some stuff to her that has been weighing me down. She knows my chronic struggles, and I can shoot really straight with her, without taking a ton of time to catch her up to speed and plead my case, hoping she will still love me. She knows my weaknesses and reminds me of grace, every time. Sometimes she gives me a little truth nudge too when I need it. I told her today how thankful I am that we have this relationship where we even confess the ugly thoughts we have, the pride, the selfishness, and all the things no one writes about on their own Twitter account or plasters atop a beautifully curated instagram photo.
Freedom, laughter, and a deep sense of joy come from this place of being known AND accepted. I think every human heart really longs for that. A lot of the time we settle for being accepted, but we can’t really ever let ourselves be known because then the acceptance might be retracted. There might not be an atmosphere of grace where we can be raw and real and still find a friend who won’t shrink away in terror when we get really honest.
(photo credit: Alex Wong on StockSnap.io)
Our souls get bound up so tightly by our facades, our masks, and our hidden failures that we are afraid to let out into the open. We weren’t made to live in secret, living superficial lives. We were made to be first, fully known by God and loved in spite of ALLLL the dirt that covers our souls, and then to turn to each other and allow our friendships and honest spaces to give our stories a safe place to land. Be brave, go first and you’ll be surprised how disarming honesty can be!
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