33 Shades of Awesome

My Great-grandmother (Nana) used to say that if you had as many close friends as you could count on one hand, you were a rich person.

Now comes the critical issue: How to define a “close” friend. As a child, I defined people as a) family or b) friends. And- as a sub-clause- one day you met someone who became your best friend and you married that person. But what happens when you grow up and your family members become friends? Or your best friend gets married? So… already we have gone from my childish idea to a multivaried construct.

When I was 10, 16, 17 and 27 years old I met four people who have been pillars in my notions of what friendship means. They have enriched my life such that my imagination is incapable of conceptualizing what a different being with a different life I would currently lead without their influence. To define what the best of friends is I must talk a little about each relationship.

When I was 10 I met my oldest best friend. In many ways ours was a childish relationship based on what we did with a childish lack of self-protection: We had a tradition of making chocolate chip cookies during our sleepovers. She was always my first choice in which friend to spend time with. Disaster struck our childish friendship when she moved several states away when I was 12. This was the olden days, before the internet and e-mail, when long distance calls were expensive and sending a letter by the post cost 25 cents. We both put in the effort to write those letters, to get permission to make those long-distance phone calls and, in a couple golden opportunities, to fly to see each other. Every conversation began with a run down on how each other’s family was doing. As we have grown older we have talked over ideas, ideals and personhood development. Her counsel is like the obo sounding an A note for the orchestra to tune before a concert, a clear bell in the fog of my own thinking.

At 16 I met someone I spent hours talking over our mutual friends, history, religion, music, our life goals, our fears... pretty much everything. There was disagreement without ever feeling like the friendship was at stake. While I don’t think he has ever considered me one of his best friends, he has been one of mine. In many things he has been my standard of what ought to be, the ruler against which other people have been held. We lost contact and found each other again over a decade later. Did that laps of time make a difference? You bet your britches it did! We had missed each other terribly and were over the moon to be back in contact. We picked up right where we left off. When I have good news I want him to celebrate with me or it’s been a rotten week, his voice soothes the discombobulation without me ever having to tell him what I’m smarting over.

At 17 I met a mother of two, pregnant with a third. As families we would spend hours at one another’s homes visiting and playing. When I needed to talk over something serious, I knew I could count on her wisdom and goodness to provide a point of reference. There was no such thing as ‘not-interested’ between us. When I was a young graduate student weekends were spent at her home playing. When my life went through it's greatest problem she helped prove that my worst fear, that I was un-lovable outside my family, was unfounded and she and her children continued to love me the same as always. She takes what I say and hands me back the best, highest interpretation thereby giving me something to live up to in her seeing my better self… all without ever trying to do that.

At 27 I met my friend who very nearly didn’t want me as a friend. It took me a year after a late night munch-n-chat at Katz deli to realize that he’d decided to bump me up from friendly to friendship. He doesn’t let me get away with anything. I said, “I don’t like modern art.” He took every chance he got to point out when I said I liked something that it was, in fact, modern art. Our conversations are often about what we’re thinking, rarely about what we’ve been doing. There are many things he likes that I find quite boring or annoying. But, when I see those things through his eyes, they become fascinating.

So, when what does one of my Great-grandmother’s close friends look like? Well, someday we’ll be sitting in Heaven and I’m going to ask her. But in the mean time this is my working definition: Physical proximity is not important: the ability to communicate is the key. Lapses in time do not produce a distance in the closeness you feel for the other person or the ability to share thoughts and feelings. You’d rather share the minutes of your life with that person than just about anyone else. Jung said that “The most terrifying thing is to accept one’s self completely,” and I think friends can model that acceptance as we learn it for ourselves. Hence, you are able to take in each other’s thoughts and feelings and give back the better reflection of your mind without taking away the distinction of self and other. The world, it’s content, it’s processes, it’s ideas and events are interesting as they are seen through the eyes of the other person. You don’t just share each other, you share in each other’s families, school, work… even grocery shopping. You can be who you are even if that’s different from the other person. They bring light, clarity, and those ‘warm fuzzies’ in a way that you anticipate and feel no need to self-protect or hold at a distance. They make you happier, more sure of who you are, help you be a better version of who you are. They don’t let you get away with anything, unless you’re not ready to deal with ‘it’ and then they just shift focus to something else to not let you get away with. Being with them is the goal, and what you do is almost immaterial. They can decide what you’re going to do together without you feeling the need to control because they know you so well they won’t ask you to do anything you wouldn’t want to do and you might end up doing something novel you would not have thought up on your own. My mom says that part of friendship is being able to be embarrassed (bare assed) and be comfortable with it. CS Lewis said that “Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship will have naked personalities.” They make you feel happy, they leave you feeling more centered even after talking about painful topics and they leave you feeling life is richer and more precious. And they let you bring all of these things and be all of this in their life.

So, if you’ve been keeping count that gives me four biologically and four non-biologically related people who have carte blanche in my life. If five people is the criteria for rich, then I am incomprehensibly rich… or blessed… I’m going with blessed. And so I am grateful beyond what words I have for the people who love me, care for me or even just like me... the people who are 33 shades of awesome.

Relationships as Sunsets

Once upon a time I started a relationship eager to know who the other person was, delighted by the ideas and ways of thinking I came to understand. I didn't slow down to consider if behavior and statements matched and if convictions were lasting. I took what was professed as the finished thought or a long held trait. I didn’t know where the relationship was going, but I quickly figured out where I hoped it was going. Sure enough, end game; Marriage.

Correction: End game; Divorce.

That was the last relationship I started without examining, evaluating, judging. One of the glaring facts that everyone who was closely involved in the start and end of the marriage came to agree upon was that what the gentleman professed was not consistent. Not that he lied. Just that he meant something when he said it, and the belief that drove the statement he believed too: Until a new belief came and then he believed that just as much, and the attendant statement just as much. He was, to put it nicely, a weather vein clearly pointing one way until he, just as committedly as the little rooster weather vein shows the direction of the wind atop a roof, pointed another direction.

But I did not evaluate so I didn’t not understand the underlying flaw in him that led to this shifting in belief, thinking, emotion and action. And this I came to understand as my cardinal mistake. In fact, I can remember saying to my dear friend in graduate school, that the next guy I thought I wanted to marry would have to agree to take a full psychological battery (cognitive, personality… the works). If my naive acceptance of who he had professed to be had been my undoing, then my calculated assessment of the next Mr. He would be my salvation from ever having to go through hell again. (For what is Hell but the dissolution or absence of relationships… it’s enough to make fire and brimstone look appealing.

My mother says I go on tons of dates, all of them in my head. I know me pretty well. And I get to know a guy. And then I (mentally) match him and me up and voila; I take him off my list of potential Mr. He’s without him ever asking me out. My mental evaluation of potential partners has saved me many awkward dates, or worse, heartache when I get attached and then see the relationship end. Oh, I am sure that I have saved myself tons of pain.

And, I am coming to understand that I have missed out on so much that the weight of those missed experiences is starting feel painful. What experiences? The ones where I let someone teach me who he was rather than me figuring it out on my own. And it took a recent blind date to make me see it.

Enter Mr. Blind Date, or Mr. BD for short. For the record, I like blind dates; they have always been fun and enjoyable for me. I’ve never had a blind date turn into a second date. But, Mr. BD did make it to date two. And I was a mess going into that date. It took my wingman and mother combined to calm me down getting ready for that date. They both told me I needed to be in the moment, enjoy connecting with a nice fellow, and just see where the conversation, the situation, the relationship all went.

Very un-evaluative.

And I do it? Of course not. Every comment, every look, everything he didn’t say or do was stacked up and assessed in the moment or tagged and filed away to be analyzed later.

For the record, Mr. BD was a very nice guy. A thoughtful and considerate date. Aside from a snide remark about assuming he’d have to see a chick flick in letting me pick the movie we were going to see (I actually picked Captain America, which I had really been wanting to see), he was ok. But I’d pretty much decided that a romantic relationship was not likely.

My mother is great. She is Dr. No Pressure when it comes to dating and marriage. Her consistent comment is that when I tell her to pay attention to a guy, she will: Until then she’s not invested in the guy or where my relationship with him goes. (I love my mother!) So whether I went to date #3 with Mr. BD or not, she wasn’t invested.

Another reason I love my mother is that she doesn’t let me get away with anything. She doesn’t hit me with everything all at once, but when she sees a glaring problem she doesn’t avoid sharing the observation. And she had a whopper of one when I’d finished talking over Mr. BD to her.

She said I need (emphasis on neeeeeeeed) to quit evaluating. I need to quit viewing relationships as things to assess. I need to see them as sunsets. On the one hand, I analyze people… My mind doesn’t rest until I can name who they are (a la Madeline L'Engle’s idea of being able to “name” someone). And I do love sunsets… the sun setting over an ocean will hold my attention as much as any book or piece of music. And with sunsets I feel no anxiety about the colors I see, or how they fade one into the other in the moment… or in the next moment how they have faded into another shade of color. And I don’t mind when it ends: Like a Beethoven piece, I love the build up to the crescendo and then enjoy the fading of the piece because it all fits together. And the dark after the sunset or the silence after the music I enjoy too.

So I have a new thing I’m trying: To be a namer and to view relationships as sunsets. I’m not quite sure where this will bring me. But it’s ok to not see the end from the beginning. After all, do you ever see the end of the sunset… it’s colors, it’s changes from one minute to the next, it’s nature as a sunset… from it’s beginning?