Tag: friendship

Barring the Doors

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“Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something you do , Something you are, And something you give away.” – John Lennon

I dreamed last night that 2 carloads of people were trying to break into my house. To protect myself and my kids, I was in the garage, trying to roll the codes for the garage door opener and even reset the Internet router. I knew these steps would make it harder for me to get out, physically and on the Internet but it felt imperative enough to do it. As I dreamed about having to take these steps, I was so afraid that I woke myself up and could still feel the gritty fear lingering as I lay in bed.

I rarely spend any time trying to analyze my dreams but this one is too obvious to miss. I have a friend who over the last year has been flaky and disappointing. The reasons are rooted in what’s going on in her life but after almost a year of her not showing up for us, I want to lock her out. In the parallel to the dream, I know this type of shutting down makes me less accessible to others across the board but my fear of continuing in this cycle makes it seem urgent.

It all begs that classic question: how do I stay open without perpetuating the cycle? As I sit in this morning quiet place with my candles lit and my mind open, I can see the answer for me is forgiveness and boundaries.

Forgiveness to release the hold disappointment has taken in my heart. To breathe into the space of empathy and understanding for my friend’s life as she struggles to do her work. Letting go of the tally sheet that my mind has been keeping for this past year.

And setting boundaries that I can maintain. As Prentice Hemphill said, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love both you and me simultaneously.” With boundaries I can create some order in this new phase of friendship without locking everything out.

The other day my 6-year-old daughter had some friends over and when the 3-year-old pulled down the fort my daughter had spent all morning making and then laughed about it, she hissed, “I’m never inviting you guys over again!” It seems so natural to want to lock others out until we are left lonely and bored without anyone to appreciate our forts. Coaching my daughter through it, I can see we can do better with forgiveness and boundaries instead.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Old Friends

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“Hold a true friend with both hands.” – Rumi

Yesterday I had lunch with my dearest and oldest friend, Katie. We met when I was my daughter’s age – six and a half years old and she was seven. We went to grade school, junior high, high school and college together. We’ve lived together, dated the same guy (not at the same time), argued and most of all laughed. We’ve aged together, sometimes growing apart and then returning to be close again.

Sitting there talking with her, I realize there is so much comfort in effortless vulnerability. We don’t need to be anyone in particular because our shared context means we’ve seen it all. And more than anything, we’ve earned the right to hear each other’s stories because we’ve shown up for all these years.

When my friend calls these days, which isn’t very often because we mostly text, I always try to pick up. And whatever and whenever she asks something of me, which is also rare, I say “yes” to. Because we’ve gone on so long that I know she’s considered the impact on me as well as any other person can.

I think movies, specifically RomCom’s gave me the mistaken impression that friends like Katie come into our lives all the time. Life has told me that we are lucky if we get one or two in all of our years. She embodies the lovely description of an honest friend I recently read again in The Book of Awakening.

“Having an honest friend – one before whom you can dump all your heart’s pockets and still feel that you are worth something – is a form of wealth that will buy you nothing but will give you everything. And mysteriously and rightly, to find such a friend, we must be such a friend.”

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

Driving away from lunch I felt so light, even with stomach full of pasta. I realized that time with her is like time without my armor on – the armor of accomplishment or knowledge or experience or humor — whatever it is I use to protect against vulnerability. That, along with understanding, might be one of the best gifts of an honest friend.

Comparative Suffering

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“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt

I’m old for a parent of a 2-year-old and a 6-year old. I had my son when I was 50 years old. Most of my long-time friends have kids in college which is great when I need babysitters. So part of my parenting journey has been to make new friends with people that have young children and have met many delightful ones.

But the other parents don’t complain to me. That isn’t to say that they don’t like me or include me, it’s just that generally they refrain from sharing their parenting woes. Every once in a while I’ll get a hint of why they don’t when a mom friend will say to me, “My husband was out of town for this week and wow, it’s so hard to get two kids to bed!” And they will often then add, “But I shouldn’t complain about that because you have to do it all the time.”

While I reassure them that it is totally fine to say that to me, I completely understand. More than that, I don’t feel bad that I do it by myself because I chose to. In fact, I often think about what would have happened if I’d had children when I was married and shake my head in relief that it’s only two kids that I have to get ready in the morning and not three if I was still married to my ex. 😊

But I finally have a term for why parents don’t complain to me because of a great Brené Brown Unlocking Us podcast episode with Esther Perel that I heard this week. Comparative suffering. When we start to complain about something and then cut ourselves off because others have it so much worse. I was recently talking with my friend Mindy about my dad’s death when I was 45-years-old and then stopped because her mom died when Mindy was only 23-years-old. I felt insensitive because I’d been able to have him in my life so much longer.

But I heard a heart-changing quote from Brené Brown on that podcast: “I had very little empathy for other people because I wasn’t open to my own pain.” When we stop to acknowledge that something hurts, sucks, is difficult — without comparing it to anyone else’s journey — we land ourselves back in reality. And from there, we can reach other people.

I frequently use “Comparison is the thief of joy” with my 6-year-old when she resorts to comparison with her friends. But now that I heard that wisdom I’m thinking of expanding it to “comparison is the thief of relationship.” We don’t have to compare any of our experience – good or bad. And when we do, we just have to acknowledge our own experience and theirs, and then continue to be real because that’s the glue of friendships, old and new.

(photo from Pexels)

Trust Falls

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“The angel seeing us is watching through each other’s eyes.” – Rickie Lee Jones

My friend Eric was over the other night and my daughter accidentally did one of those “trust falls” when she tripped over something, fell backwards and he caught her. She thought that was so much fun that she wanted to do it again and again.

Watching this, I was trying to think who I trust to catch me. As I started listing all the wonderful people in my life in my head and thinking whether I’d trust them to catch me if I metaphorically fell (like if I got sick), I started automatically providing excuses why I wouldn’t ask. Like there’s Lindsey but she is so busy, there’s Eric but he just started a new job, there’s Katie but she’s a half hour away, and there’s my mom but she should be enjoying her senior years.

I had to meditate on this for a while. Why is it that I don’t “trust” any of the people that I really and truly trust? And the answer is my own fear of vulnerability. I don’t want to ask. I fear having to ever own that there are some days I’m a hot mess on the inside.

Of course this is all thankfully hypothetical but also represents my ongoing battle with over-preparing for life. It’s not just now. I can think back to when I climbed mountains and I would check the packing list over and over so that I wouldn’t have to ask anyone to borrow anything. Or sleep with my contacts in so I wouldn’t be late to tie into the rope team when we’d leave for our final summit bid in the middle of the night.

When I really dig deep, I see that I trust my spiritual guides like my dad and God much more than I do living people. Because I don’t have to ask out loud!

When it comes to trust falls, I think it is far easier to be the person catching than the person falling. Unless you are a 6-year-old and then you love doing the falling. But if I remember correctly from the group building exercises I’ve done in the past, you have to both do the falling and the catching.

A good reminder that we have to practice vulnerability. So I’ll go first. I started blogging regularly because working remotely and being a parent means that I don’t have enough conversations with adults that go deep. That leaves me feeling this weird kind of loneliness that isn’t bored or even unhappy but just scared I’m missing the point.  So I write but I don’t advertise this to anyone outside the blogging community just in case I’m overreaching. But I aspire to one day own all of me and to know the power of doing so.

Whoa! That was scary. But I’ll catch you if you want to take a turn!

And Then I Woke Up with a Tattoo

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“Knowledge increases by sharing, not by saving.” – Lyrical

About 10 months ago when I started to blog regularly, I remember LA of the Waking Up on the Wrong Side of Fifty blog saying in a comment that I would develop great blog friends. Given that the platform lends itself to self-awareness and sharing, it’s a reasonable assumption. But I didn’t really understand the familiarity that develops when you follow someone, dare to comment and create a history over time.

Now that I do, I’m so grateful for the blog community. The awesome power of sharing wisdom, practicing putting words to this experience of life and telling stories. I have learned so much and I have laughed a lot. It’s like spending an extended time sitting around a table swapping stories with people from around the world.

And then coming home with a tattoo!

Thanks to the hilarious Betsy from the ParentingIsFunny blog. Her friend had them made for her birthday and in recapping the adventure she offered to send extras to anyone who would wear one. Happy birthday, Betsy!

Friends for All Seasons

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“A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us be what we should.” – unknow

I hosted a birthday brunch for my friend this past weekend. It was all great – my kids worked super hard to color the wrapping paper for gifts, set the table and make signs, I cooked and cleaned for a day in order to have friends over to our house which doesn’t happen much in this COVID era. It was all great — except my friend didn’t show up.

She sent her husband to come alone because she was throwing up from a bad oyster that she’d eaten the night before at a wedding for someone she barely knows but felt like she had to go. She didn’t call or text because I’m guessing she thought it was sufficient that he would let us know. Which he did and the disappointment meant I spent the first five minutes of the party holding my daughter as she cried.

So, I’m upset with my friend. Obviously not for being sick but because this is about the 20th example (and most dramatic) of how she hasn’t shown up for us literally and figuratively since she took a new job 6 months ago. At first I was all grace and understanding but by now my grace pool has been diminished to the point that I’m out of empathy at the time when she really was sick. I’m tired of watching her seeming to try to be best friends with all of her new co-workers and in so doing, impacting her existing relationships and her ability to care for herself.

I spent the whole rest of the weekend brooding about this. I didn’t want to gossip so I kept it to myself and it simmered under the surface. Until I was finally ready to deal with it yesterday. As irked as I was, I couldn’t sit and meditate about this so I tried a walking meditation.

When I’d bled enough energy off so that I could get some space from the hurt of it, I realized this isn’t about me. My friend appears to be undergoing a transformation in her life and from my experience transformations are often messy, painful and not well communicated. From my experience, it’s like being in a washing machine just trying to find out which way is up while hopefully something gets clean.

I suppose we can all give up on each other as we transform and I’m sure we give each other plenty of excuses to bail. But that’s when we need each other most, even if just hold space for each other and occasionally shout “this way is up.” Perhaps my friend and I will end up on the other side of this with not enough common ground to be close and that will be okay. But I know that for my friends that have stood with me through the messy transformations, we have a deeper relationship as we’ve been friends through all seasons.

All of this makes me wonder – maybe the one small step in making the world a more peaceful place is holding space for others as they change?

The Work of Friends

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“My friends are the beings through whom God loves me.” – Saint Martin

My six-year-old daughter’s friend called her bossy the other day. Oh-boy, did this touch a whole chain reaction of feelings in me, not many of them that I’m proud of. Judgment of the little girl, defensiveness for all girls who dare to live out loud, and an instinct to criticize the name-caller in order to reduce the sting to list a few. But more than that, an internal outburst at the insidious nature of learning so that just when I’ve finally figured out how to belong to myself and not worry too much about what anyone else thinks, life takes it up a notch so that I have to master NOT reacting on the behalf of my children.

Assuming (and hoping) that I have many years to go with this experience of supporting these children as they grow through self-acceptance and however they come to terms with the good and bad of other’s acceptance, I brought this question of how I was going to deal with it to the meditation cushion.

Here’s what showed up. I wouldn’t do my kids homework for them because it steals their opportunity to learn and grow. But I will answer questions, fuel their desire for learning, sit with them and hold their hands if necessary.

In the same way, I can’t do their social work for them. It also would steal their opportunity to learn and grow. So my job is the same – to sit beside them, help them uncover their own wisdom and hold their hands if necessary.

My daughter and I talked about how she felt. She decided to ask her friend if she had been called bossy, how that felt and talk about treating others the way she wants to be treated. I heard a little bit of the conversation and kept my mouth shut. As first steps in the realm of friendship go, it went okay.

Then I went and talked to my friends about this indirect experience of life that comes with parenting. More than anything, the fact that I’ve had these friends through many ups and downs in life and friendship, helped widen my perspective. I’ve never been able to solve their problems either. But through them I’ve learned to walk alongside others, letting go of what I can’t control and breathing in to the faith that showing up is what we are called to do with others and it works!

Listening, the Next Generation

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“The art of conversation lies in listening.” – Malcom Forbes

I’ve been discovering the joys of carpooling 6-year-olds this week. As we’ve driven the 25 minutes to camp, my daughter and her friend have been sitting in the back telling jokes and commentating on the things we see.

Her friend, a boy she went to both co-op preschool and now elementary school with, isn’t as quick with words as she is. So early in the week, we were playing a game where we were naming things in a category (like name how many places you’ve been to on vacation) and I found myself continually jumping into the conversation to remind him of words and answers he might have been searching for. I was afraid he wouldn’t ever get a fair chance given my daughter’s ability to rapidly pounce into any silence.

This phase of parenthood where I don’t always have to be the entertainer is both restful and fascinating to me. It seems so sudden that it’s upon us even though that’s probably just because we missed a good part of a year and a half being with other kids. As I pondered this, I realized I was struggling to just listen to my daughter figuring out how to listen.

It’s taken me a good part of 50 years to learn how to listen and I’m still working on it. To delay that part of myself that wants to jump in, ask questions, prove I’m listening, prove I’m worthy, or tell my story long enough to let my heart soak in what the other person is saying before responding. And also to find the quiet in myself so that I can hear the small insistent voice of the Divine when it speaks. Now, in the insidious nature of life taking lessons to the next level, I have to learn to just sit back and listen as my kids figure out the same knowing it could take them equally as long.

Yesterday as we drove, my daughter came up with this game where she put a ring in each of her hands and her friend had to guess which one was in which. After she’d done a couple of rounds, I so badly wanted to jump in and tell her to give her friend a turn but I stayed quiet. And a little while later her friend spoke up that he wanted to a chance to do the hiding. I’ve found a new delight in the art of listening: creating space for others to find their voice.

A Safe Place

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“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. ‘Pooh!’ he whispered. ‘Yes, Piglet?’ ‘Nothing’ said Piglet taking Pooh’s paw, ‘I just wanted to be sure of you.’ “ – A. A. Milne from The House at Pooh Corner

The other day I picked my son up from preschool and my daughter from spending an afternoon with my mom and from the instant we were in the car together, the fussing started. My daughter was covering my son’s eyes and he didn’t like that, she didn’t like her attempts at play not being well received and the crabbiness mushroomed from there.

As a mom with two young kids, I’ve thought a lot about being someone’s safe place. My kids fuss, fret and freely object with me in a way that they don’t with anyone else. Often it’s after they have been somewhere else and behaved marvelously according the reports I get, that they fuss the most. It’s as if holding themselves together comes with this letting down of the hair with me. I’m pretty patient but whining gets my goat. I don’t whine (not out loud at least) and I hate (thinking about whether there is a less potent word to be used here but nope, hate is accurate) when my kids whine. Crying, having a fit, objecting strongly – all of that I can handle but whining, especially symphonic whining that moves from one kid to the next and ARGH!!

It’s the idea of being someone’s safe place that both fascinates and saves me. In a world where it’s not possible to be happy all the time but not acceptable to express anything but happiness, safe places are where we get to act out that shadow side. Our safe people are the ones who can help us process the grime that collects during the day and practice shaking it off, sometimes by creating friction and rubbing up against others who help us shine again.

When my daughter was about 3-years-old she became very interested in the Narrator in the Winnie-the-Pooh chronicles. She wanted to know who the voice was that was providing context and integrating the story. She’d want me to pretend I had a microphone and narrate her activities. I’ve come to think of being my kid’s safe place like being that personal narrator – someone who helps them understand the bigger story around the things they are seeing and learning when out and about in the world. Someone who helps them figure out how they are feeling and reacting to it all.

Once I learned from Mark Nepo that the German root of the word friendship means place of high safety it changed how I think of that hallowed ground between friends. Because I believe we do the same thing for our friends that I do for my kids – we help each other work out our stories. We listen to the bumps, bruises, moments of awe and renewal again and again if necessary until we work out our narratives.

When I see it that way, I feel less abused by the acting out. While I’d prefer that I bring out the best in my kids, I can handle when it seems I bring out their worst. I can find grace for the fact that I’m allowing the authenticity of my kids to show and opening the opportunity to talk about our values, respect for others and ways of handling things when we are overloaded with information and activity. And when I sometimes growl, “Stop whining” which isn’t my best either I’m glad I get to work that out in my safe space too.

A Thin Place

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“Nothing among human things has such power to keep our gaze fixed even more intensely upon God than friendship.” – Simone Weil

We baked cookies for our neighbor and her husband yesterday. They have been taking 24/7 care of her elderly mom for a week now since she suddenly became sick and unable to care for herself. My daughter made a card for them and we put the card with the cookies and some puzzles and set off to deliver them. My neighbor’s mom only lives around the corner. My daughter wanted to carry the basket and when she handed them over, our neighbor cried. Then I cried.

It was a holy moment, the kind of moment that Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal church calls a thin place where God is just that much closer. The unexpressed weariness and worry in our neighbor met the softness of a kind gesture and out leaked some tears from the River of Life.

I’m completely flummoxed by how to teach faith to my kids. I look back to the Sunday School and all the church activities from my youth and while they were fun, I just didn’t get it and neither did my siblings.  It was only life in it’s raw, humbling way that made me search for the wider current that unites us all. Now I can tell you Christian stories, practice Buddhist-inspired meditation, find God out in nature and read anything deep in order to keep life vital.

So I’ve tried Sunday School for my daughter as a base hoping that it starts the seed that will grow into whatever works for her. But yesterday, witnessing two grown-ups cry over a plate of cookies while the spark of the Divine crackled in the air taught more than 100 Sundays. Even my toddler just stood there smiling watching something he didn’t understand. It reminded me that the unplanned lessons sometimes are the best.