Grace in friendship:

Flipping an old script

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. . . . But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” – Muhammad Ali

Photo by Dương Hữu on Unsplash

Lately I’ve been having the pesky thought that I’ve spent three decades caring about friendship deeply but getting something about it wrong. Ever since I was a middle schooler cut out of friend groups for being too sensitive and made fun of by “friends” for my five-finger forehead and Kerri Strug haircut, I’ve been careful around friendship. So careful that I asked David to read this twice to make sure nothing in here would offend my friends who subscribe to this newsletter! And once I have a friend, I try my best to keep them, which sometimes means ignoring clear signs it’s time to let go. This was true back when I could count my friends on one hand, and it’s true now that I have lovely friends scattered across the country.

The problem is not the beautiful people who now populate my life. The problem is of my own making. My questions in friendship have always been, What do they want? What do they need from me? Do they still like me? My questions are rarely, What do I want? What do I need? What is the next true thing I have to say?

This is not the way I’ve treated David—not from the start. He gets all my truths and wants and needs. So why have I treated friendship so differently?   

It’s an old story. I got hurt, and I started telling myself that friendships are fragile; they are unpredictable. Friends are bees perpetually in search of something better, so I must be every flower all at once. Every one that flies away crushes me.

I’ve forgotten to look around the garden. To notice that not one thing ever stays the same for long, or was meant to. A bee and flower can find each other one time and miss each other the next. Any true meeting is a tiny miracle.

Friendship is not a fixed state; it’s a collection of true meetings. I am working on holding friends with an open hand—trusting that we will find each other when the times in our lives are right, and even if we don’t find each other for a while or again, that doesn’t make past times any less meaningful. This change in perspective—when I can keep it—has helped me see what I want and need most from friends in this phase of life: being unafraid to bring the dark into the light and stare at it a while together; listening to understand rather than to judge; sharing about the real stuff; and joining me in “burning to be better,” as

Andrea Gibson

says. Not everyone wants the same things from friendship. And that’s okay.

Open-handedness has also meant telling more truth. Like canceling a plan with friends I really care about when I was too exhausted to think straight. Like telling a dear friend when my feelings were hurt. Like checking in with myself and David before reflexively making another plan.

J.K. Rowling wrote, “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” I don’t think I’ll ever shed my gentle grace with friends. I wouldn’t want to. But a little more truth goes a long way. It helps me get to know myself better in the garden of everyone else.