A couple of weeks ago at church, the speaker talked about how important it is to periodically ask the people around you what you need to change, and encouraged us all to follow that advice. He said we should ask two friends, people who know and love us, love the word of God, and we aren't related to. I agreed: this sounded like good advice. So I started thinking. Who should I ask?
The truth is that I came up with no one. I thought and thought and wondered, who fit all that criteria? The "not related to" part scratched Regan and Mom off the list... my obvious first choices.
It seems a little silly, but the whole thing sent me into a two-day crisis over my relationships, as I pondered the fact that I felt like no one really knew me. REALLY knew me. Was I so bad at relationships? I feel like I am a fairly transparent person. Did I just not let people in? I couldn't stop listening to a new favorite song by Don Chaffer, which probably didn't help. "And I don't see why I'm so lonely, but I've got a funny feeling that it's my fault. I've tried so hard, just to rise above it," he empathized with me.
I forgot about it with my busy week, but then the following week a friend who works at the church asked what I thought of the message. I unloaded on him. I started by telling him how I felt like the message was sort of incomplete, just to throw out there that people need to be asking their friends what they should change without any practical steps of how to go about that. But what about all that criteria? What about for all those people like me who didn't have friends who fit into that box? There wasn't a checklist of who I should or shouldn't ask. Who really knows me anyway? Am I that bad at relationships? The conversation got more personal as it went on.
And I received good counsel in return: not everyone was going to know every side of me. Maybe the challenge should have been put, ask two people in each area of my life who know me, love God, and aren't related to me.
It's OK that my mom-friends only know me as I relate to my kids. It's OK that some of my other friends never know that I feel like I spend half the time screaming at my children, the other half ignoring them, and end the day in tears. It's OK that my colleagues at work don't know that I have a horrible facebook addiction and a messy house. BUT, they still know valuable things about me, and may still have valuable insight into what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So that shouldn't stop me from asking.
I was relieved to get over that hurdle. But was still left with another burning question: Why was I so lonely? I DO have a funny feeling that it's my fault. What is stopping me from pursuing my friends, so I can feel like any one of them really knows me well? I just don't know exactly, and none of my excuses seem like a really good reason. I often follow this cyclical pattern:
I don't want to call my friends with kids who are sitting at home--probably just as lonely as I am--because I am sick and tired of kids and I don't want them to come over with MORE kids and try to have a conversation above the noise and interruptions. The times we get away for a girl's night every couple months aren't enough to get past the small and dirty diaper talk.
So I call my old friends without kids, with whom I am comfortable and at ease. But people without kids have lives, plans. Who else could I call? Hanging out with new friends sounds like work. I am just so tired.
Bored, I "reach out" to my facebook "friends", with clever status updates or ridiculously cute pictures of my children. But every person who likes a picture and comments on a post isn't really my friend.... I wouldn't know their voice if they called me on the phone and didn't identify themselves. Oh, I don't like talking on the phone anyway.
Am I being too picky, to think that now that I am a mother, I might get to have some time with my friends away from my kids? To think that my friends might call ME sometime, instead of feeling like I am chasing them? We all functioned once without facebook, and I think without these artificial connections we were happier. But what would I do without at least SOME sort of connection throughout the day?
I was hesitant to broach this topic, wondering if there would be anyone who feels like they are closer to me than I am portraying. And that could be true, I tend to underestimate the depth of relationships sometimes. Many of you I truly do not know well at all. Maybe some of my closer friends will read this, maybe a complete stranger. But my guess is that a lot of you--especially you moms--will be nodding your heads in agreement.
There is much value in the casual friendships, in the acquaintances, but I can't help but feel I am missing something. So I ask you, "friends": Have you found a way to be a parent, a true friend, a whole person who is.... not lonely? I guess I haven't.
