I think there has always been a part of me that wanted
friendships out of a novel. Kids who grew up together, shared everything with
each other, knew each other backwards and forwards, some who fell in love and
in the end everyone lived in the same town and their kids all got married and
everyone lived happily ever after. Fairy tale romances never appealed to me,
but fairy tale friendships? That was my dream. I wanted that more than almost
anything. I idealized it and as I grew up and realized the friends I had at 13
were not the friends I had at 16, or 18, and I was definitely not marrying any
of the guys I’d been close with growing up, it made me rather sad. But I
realize now that my friends are far better than any fairy tale, simply because
they defied any boxes a novel would put them in.
In middle school and the first few years of high school, my
friends were an eclectic group of “misfits”, at least that’s what we chose to
define ourselves as. I don’t think anyone really saw us that way, but we
enjoyed the distinction. We reveled in our uniqueness, sometimes exaggerating
it. We loved being in plays together and having late night worship sessions
under the stars. We watched some really crappy movies and sang show tunes in
the car. We had girls’ nights and raves in the school locker rooms, and loved
every silly beautiful second of it.
The summer after my sophomore year I was still a part of
that group, but a new circle had formed. Outside of school, I had a new sort of
family. Mostly boys but a few girls, we had this bond that to this day we can’t
completely explain. Severely different people, but we shared something. Days
after knowing them, we were starting a band, planning new ministries, forming a
Frisbee team and giving each other nicknames. Before that summer, I had one
brother and one sister. After that, I had more than a dozen. We played our
techno music far too loud and danced under the black lights painted with high
lighter ink. We spent afternoons and late nights lounging outdoors or in
cramped bedrooms listening to music we’d never discovered before, talking about
everything. Nerdy things, stupid things, funny things, life changing things… I
learned more about that group of people in one night crowded in my friend’s
tiny bedroom than I had ever learned about people before. We played endless
games of Frisbee and drank more cans of Peace Tea than I can count. We watched
trippy movies and spilled our souls. At summer camp we danced and screamed and
cried during worship sessions that tore our souls apart. We shared the deepest
parts of ourselves in the heat of Tennessee summers. We became family.
My senior year of high school, inexplicably, things changed.
In school, for an unknown reason, I was no longer part of the circle I’d hung
out with since elementary school. Nothing happened, no fights or falling outs,
just somehow on the first day of my last year of high school, I ended up at
lunch with the “popular guys”. My friend Erika and I somehow jumped from two
different groups of mixed genders to being the only girls in a group of very
different boys. To this day, we puzzle over how it happened, but truthfully? I
couldn’t be more happy that it did. The friendships I made that year will be
with me for a long time. I love those guys, our little bubble. I love their
craziness and their individuality, their willingness to stand up for what they
believe in as a whole and their loyalty to each other. I love that we had the
greatest final English project in the history of the school and all the insane
memories we made doing it. I love the complexity of our group, the
relationships we had with each individual; I love the nicknames we gave each
other and the inside jokes we shared. I love that we always sat in the same
order at lunch and in study hall. I love the late night talks Erika and I had
when we were worried over one of them, concerned about something happening in
their life. I love that we still have those talks. I love the memories of
basketball games with two or three of them, cheering despite the fact I almost
never knew exactly what was happening. I love how they would always stack all
the trash on one tray at lunch in such a way that it always fell down before we
got it to the trash can. I love how even now I sometimes get a text just asking
how my classes are going or when I’ll be home next because one of them misses
me. We made memories to last a lifetime, memories that continue to define me.
Now I’m about to finish my freshman year of college. I
didn’t feel ready. The church family had started to drift, the guy I sincerely
believed to be my best friend ripped a hole in my heart that meant we couldn’t
remain friends, my school friends parted ways for different colleges and jobs,
and I started college feeling very friendless. Oh indeed, I had an amazing family,
and immeasurably precious friendships with both my siblings and my boyfriend,
but for the first time in many years, I felt very, very alone. I ate meals at a
solitary table in the dining commons or out of to-go containers alone in my
room, tagged along with my roommate and her friends from the soccer team, and
generally felt sorry for myself. I couldn’t seem to find my way out of this
isolated cocoon I’d spun myself into. Finally, God brought me a friend, a
relationship that grew very slowly, given that we are both bookish introverts,
but one that I desperately needed, and so did she. God put me in a place to
serve by leading with the campus ministries coordinators and through that
helped me build some new and wonderful relationships. Having built a foundation
with the girls I lived with, it gave me confidence to make friends in my
classes and at work, expanding my still rather small circle to the point where
I’m truly sad to be leaving for the summer. I find myself having made new
friends as recently as the last few days that I am really going to miss seeing
on a regular basis.
I never had fairy tale friendships. My life and my friends
are real and changing and ever expanding in ways that God has planned for us,
and it is so SO much better than any fairy tale.
