So, today is my best friend’s birthday. Most of us either have a best friend, or we have had a best friend at some point in our lives. For the better part of 42 or so years, Jeanette has been mine.
She’s about a year older than me, and we were kind of thrown together as little kids. She was technically my step-cousin, although I have never been the kind of person who finds using the term “step” to describe any person easy, especially any person I care about. And besides, she was more like a sister anyway.
I glommed onto her, pretty much, immediately. These days, when I watch my own daughter trying to engage with older children, I know how tough it can be for older kids to know how to respond with empathy.
Jeanette was not only empathetic, she was kind and generous. She always made me feel included, even though I wasn’t her “real” cousin. We played Star Wars together, and plotted and schemed to go swimming at the creek near our grandparents’ house—even when it was way too cold. And we both pretended our lips weren’t turning blue.
I think we both may have felt different from the other kids and people in our family. I think even the way we played was a projection of how much we wanted to do our own things.
There were several giant bedrocks on our grandparents’ property, and two of them became our “houses.” Every other weekend, which was the schedule for us getting together, we re-established our place on these bedrocks, spending a great deal of our time clearing off yard debris, securing “furniture,” and trying to get moss to grow into carpet.
All of that play was delightful, but my friendship with Jeanette was always so much more. As she grew up, she happily shared her interests in music, other cultures, beliefs, and ideas about the world. Anyone could argue that it was simply influence, but over the years, I have fervently believed that we were brought together in friendship for a reason. Every part of her world that she was willing to share with me shaped, and continues to shape who I am as a person.
We have had periods of distance and separation. In fact, I thought our friendship was forever lost about seven years ago. But even after all of the years, and even after the pauses in our friendship, we can still go into a shop or gallery and pick up the same things, or be interested in the same works. We still love the same music. There are, certainly, deviations. She doesn’t like Maroon 5, and while I liked a couple of the Star Trek series, I would never refer to myself as a Trekkie.
More interesting to me than what we share in common when we are together are all of the things we share in common, or at least have a common interest in, even when we are apart. Every time we have returned to our friendship, it is our similar interests that ease the tensions of our separation, and bring us right back to where we left off.
When I started this “thankful series,” she was the friend I had been missing as I drove around Kansas City back in September. She is the friend I felt compelled to pull over and message, to let her know she was on my mind. And it is our history as friends, and even our history during our most recent distance that has given me one of the most important life lessons about caring for others—never leave things unsaid. Never leave the way you feel about someone up for interpretation.
Throughout our lives, we all will go through hard times. We will all go through seasons of self-doubt, and we will question our worth, our connections, our values, and our role in people’s lives. Sometimes, we will not know how much we are loved by someone. There are times when we are so unsure of ourselves that we push even our anchors away.
Jeanette is at least partly responsible for my interest in religions, philosophy, ancient cultures, and paganism. She is particularly responsible for my being a Celtophile. In the Celtic tradition, the Gaelic term Anam Cara is used to describe someone who is a “soul friend.” These people are different from normal friends. They can act as a teacher, companion, and spiritual guide.
Through sharing her world, she has been my teacher. As we have traveled, and adventured over the years, she has been my companion. And she has always informed my spirit.
To be honest, much of what she shared as we grew up helped me keep my head above water, emotionally, through times that little else did. Through all that she gave me to love alongside her, I had a world I could escape to, and love even when everything else in my life was in shambles, and she couldn’t be there. I often credit U2 with “saving my life.” Day after day, during my high school years, I would listen to “The Joshua Tree” on repeat with my ear right beside the speaker. Jeanette introduced me to U2.
But introducing me to U2 is nothing compare to the deep, lifelong friendship—the sisterhood—she has shared with me. To say I am grateful would never cover how I feel about her. I can say that I am grateful for courage, because it was courage that gave me a path back to our friendship after too many years apart. And it is our friendship that continues to inform the way I will express my friendship with others going forward.
She is still teaching me. She is still informing my spirit. And once again, she is my companion.
No comments:
Post a Comment