After thinking a little more about last night's post, I've decided to dedicate this week of blog posts to friendship (aka I thought of something that I didn't get to say yesterday and I need an excuse to bring up my friends again). With my track record, we're looking at anywhere from 2 to 4 posts since I've never had something to say every day for a week. But friendship is something we've all struggled with at one time or another so maybe I'll break my record this week.
Aaaaaaanyway, we're headed back to Saturday night on the floor of my friend's room for today's thoughts. At one point during our emotion-wreaking catch-up session, the conversation turned to being vulnerable. Both of us have been hurt by friends in the past (as I'm sure everyone who's ever had a friend has experienced), and, like you, we developed defense mechanisms for dealing with the pain. Instead of dealing with the emotions, we find ourselves pulling away from other friends and getting lost in our work. We over-schedule our days and stretch ourselves too thin. We join more clubs or volunteer to pick up someone's shift or actually read the book assigned for class. We put all of our energy into proving something--proving we're good students or good athletes or good workers. Anything to keep from having even 5 minutes of unplanned time during the day where we'd be forced to think about how much it hurts when our friends pull away from us. But what we don't realize is how much worse this approach makes it. Sure it might seem like a good plan for awhile--hey we're not getting hurt, right? WRONG. We are hurting; it's just in a different way. Maybe we've stopped ourselves from feeling some of the pain of no longer having that friend in our lives. Actually, is that even true? I don't know about you, but my thoughts seem to go straight to whatever it is I don't want to think about as soon as I get in the shower or settle into bed. So it doesn't even matter how jam packed I make my day, the hurt still finds a way in. But I digress. There are two things I think we lose when we choose to bury our feelings.
First is the chance to learn from the experience and reflect on what, if anything, we could or would do differently next time. I tried to convince myself that I did this after the whole falling out with L from the last post, but oh how wrong I was. My "reflection" consisted of a decision to essentially stop contacting my friends. I would sit around and wait for them to ask me to do something or invite me to go somewhere because I was so worried that I would be imposing myself on them. I wouldn't even suggest something as small as what route we should take to get to class. This worked out about as well as you'd expect and resulted in me becoming pretty good friends with my TV and couch. It wasn't until I started my journey to Catholicism that I started taking more time to see how absolutely asinine this approach was and how little reflection I had really done. I wasn't reflecting at all; I was simply responding to being hurt by doing the exact opposite of what I had been doing. And yes, it was important that I stop doing some of the things I had been doing (texting incessantly, being jealous, and expecting her to hang out with me every weekend I went home). But not all of my actions were bad. And that's what I didn't see before. I should contact my friends and tell them how great they are (because who doesn't love hearing that??). I should be the one who comes up with things to do sometimes (because no one wants to have to suggest things alllll the time). I also learned how important it is to have more than one friend (you don't say...). It just had never been a problem for me before. When you both only have one friend, it just doesn't come up I guess. Anyway, moral of this point: I've realized how important it is to honestly reflect on experiences, especially the painful ones.
The second thing I think we lose by refusing to be vulnerable is our ability to be a good friend to the ones we still have. What does it mean to be a good friend? I think half the battle is being available and the other half is being vulnerable (any other halves you can think of?). Sometimes that's all we need--someone to be there when we need to vent about our sister, cry about our boyfriend, or laugh about our creepy blog-stalking. We may not even need the other person to say anything; it's enough to know they're on the other end of the phone/bed listening to us pour our hearts out. But if we're too busy being busy so that we don't have to deal with our wounds, we can't be available to our friends. And while they may understand in the beginning (after all, we all have to cancel plans for whatever reason every now and then), I've discovered that you'll quickly find yourself wondering why no one has called or texted you all week asking if you want to grab coffee if you never commit to any plans. You just can't be friends with someone you never spend any time with. And when you are spending time with a friend, I think it's important to be present and vulnerable. How many times have you been in the middle of an intense story only to have the person you're talking to check whatever text just came in? Does that bother anyone else? I mean, if we're just sitting around watching TV or talking about my cat following me into the bathroom every.single.time I get up to go, then fine, check the message. But come on, know when it's okay! (I almost tripped getting off my soapbox there.) Anyway, I just think it's important to be vulnerable if we want something more than surface friendships. This is something I'm still struggling with, but within the past year, I've realized how vital that vulnerability is to any good relationship. But it's hard, isn't it? It's hard putting yourself out there without knowing how the other person is going to react to whatever you have to say. It's hard letting someone in when it's caused so much hurt in the past. But isn't it harder never having anyone to share things with? Isn't it harder not being able to bounce ideas or insecurities off of someone else? Maybe it's just me, but I need others' opinions on things. I don't know everything, nor have I experienced everything life has to offer, so I value the insights others can offer. And even though there's a chance that I may get hurt by opening up to a friend, I now know that God gives me those opportunities for a reason. We're not meant to be alone, so we might as well make the most of the friendships we're blessed with, even though it means facing whatever fear or insecurity we're plagued with. I can't promise you'll never get hurt again; we're human and can't help making mistakes. But I can tell you that I've never had better friends than the ones I've made since letting go of some of my fears and telling myself it's okay to be vulnerable. I have to remind myself of that every time I question whether or not I should leave a comment, make a phone call, or offer a shoulder to cry on.
Don't worry, I'll get back to the lighter posts soon! I promise I don't always spend this much time thinking about things :)
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