Tag Archives: friendships

In the awkward intersections…

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Until I was about 44 years old, I was proper.  I conformed to the conventions of whatever group I happened to be with in an effort to blend in, adhere to the norms, and to not be singled out.  Our society and culture, as well as the social groups we belong to, put norms on what we can talk about, how we should act, how we should dress, what we should look like and who we should be friends with. And for all of our bravado of saying we don’t conform, this is something all of us do.  For example, there are few heterosexual men that will wear an evening gown, high heels, and makeup in public. We get embarrassed when someone is walking down the street wailing at the top of their lungs because public displays of emotions are frowned upon.  To be a “hipster” you have to look, act, and dress a certain way.  All of those things are examples of conforming.  I just have to say…screw that.

Dirty-FilterInstead of being proper, I have become a believer in filters.  Filters keep out what you don’t want and let in the parts that you do. For example, coffee filters keep the grounds out yet still let in the delicious coffee.  One day I was having a conversation with Matt about a ski meetup I had joined while he was travelling abroad. I was telling him that the challenging part was when driving to the mountain with a new carload of people each week and having the first superficial conversation over and over, i.e. what do you do, where are you from, etc.  I complained that it didn’t allow you to really get to know anyone more in-depth because you never got to any “meatier” discussions.  Matt’s response was “so just start with the 4th conversation”.  HUH, I don’t understand?  He said, “when they get in the car just start talking about poop, or your last sexual encounter, or your stand on women’s rights. If they ride with you again, they will be your friends.  If they jump out of the car, you’ll know they really aren’t people you want to hang around anyway.  It’s a filter.”

That made me think about all the really great friends I have and what attracted me to them.  In each case, the people I am closest to moved into my inner circle of friends by saying or doing something totally outrageous.  I love outrageous, unrestrained people. Who to hell wants to hang around boring, superficial, predictable people?  Oh yeah, other boring, superficial, predictable people do.  I want to be unpredictable so I look for other people to mirror that for me.

One of my favorite stories of a friend who is unrestrained and who I love dearly is my friend Jenny.  Jenny, Tracy and I all went skiing one Saturday morning. Tracy and I were friends but we didn’t really know Jenny that well.  When we got in the car, we all had a story we wanted to share about how great our week was. Tracy had something good happen at work, I got a new grant, but Jenny wanted to tell her story first.  Jenny said, “I had the best week. I met up with this guy I haven’t seen since I moved here. We made out at the bar, I brought him home, we had sex all night, then in the morning, we woke up, made bloody mary’s and stayed naked on the couch all day.”  Silence. Tracy and I looked at each other and, as one, said, “my news isn’t that interesting after all.”   How could we not fall in love and be friends with a person like Jenny?  She has this fantastic sense of self, of her needs, and of what is really important in life.  She is fabulous.  And most of the women who hear me tell that story all say “I want to do that” but very few ever will even attempt anything so bold.

Relationships take lots of work and honest, open communication. We all want to be seen in a good light, but you have to willing to be real and authentic with people always, from day one.  Even when it is hard and you don’t want people to know that you have made a mistake, done something stupid, or are having a crazy moment, you have to just put yourself out there anyway.  You will enjoy life a lot more if you can just be your unrestrained self with people that can be that way with you in return.  And that means in all your crazy glory, even wailing at the top of your lungs while walking down the street. The people who are truly your friends won’t shy away from that.  If they can’t handle the authentic you…well why would you even care what they think?  Authenticity is a filter, it filters out those who we want to keep in our lives from those who we need to let go so that they can find what they are looking for in someone else.

I believe that we are pretty spectacular people and that if we know ourselves, we can then introduce ourselves to others in an honest, fun, specifically quirky way as individuals who are comfortable with our awkwardness… and that’s usually where we connect with people– the awkward intersections. ~ Rachel

If you plant peas, you are going to get peas… ~Ella

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I am not sure why it is so hard for me to recognize that fact. It is a pretty simple thing to understand. We reap what we sow, so if we sow pea seeds, we can’t expect strawberries to pop up.

Like attracts like. Isn’t that the universal law of attraction? The people who are closest to us and the people who we are attracted to mirror who we are.  They reflect back our inner selves and we also act as mirrors to them.  You can tell a lot about a person when you look at the people who they value, the people who are closest to them.

I have said it before, I have the best friends ever. They are all men and women of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity.  I admire them greatly and feel like I am always striving to be like them. They challenge me to be my best.

What I tend to forget is that I act as their mirror also, it isn’t a one-way thing.  They are attracted to me for the qualities they see in me.  That is the hard part for me to accept because it blows all my inner doubts and issues of self-esteem out of the water.  Those self-doubts are of my own making.  I am planting peas.  If all I do is put out my fears, insecurities, self-doubts, I will cultivate people in my life that have those same doubts.  I will cultivate friends who don’t reflect my values.

The problem is, I am not living up to my end of the relationship bargain. I am expecting these incredible people to be supportive of my struggles and they are.  But in my insecurity and self-doubt, what I am not doing is supporting them in their struggles in return. I have to ask myself, when they need me to mirror back to them those same incredible qualities, am I doing my job?

Part of developing a new identity is deciding who I want to be. I have chosen these people to be my friends, so I am choosing those attributes as characteristics I want to mirror.  So it is time to step up and accept that is who I am.  I am a woman of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity. I have been planting my crops and I will harvest what I have sown.  It is time to act like a grown woman and be the friend I need to be.

Marianne Williamson said it better than I ever could, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It is harvest time.