Five Minute Friday: Friend

Deep and wide. Deep or wide.

I'd say I have rotating friends syndrome. Growing up at camp meant that friends entered in for a season, you grew close, shared life and developed bonds only to watch them leave and go back to their "real life" each year.

And I did the same. I said goodbye to my school friends for the summer to focus on my camp friends and then rotated back when the leaves turned and I traded flipflops and swimming pools for desks and books.

So I've been a wide friend, but not necessarily a deep friend.

I know a lot of people and a lot of people know me, but do many know me deeply?

Friendship has always been seasonal. I'm working to break the cycle.

There's the friend who has known me since sandbox days and the only one to earn the "best friend" title. Now we live 3 states apart and talk once, maybe twice a day but when we do it's sweet. We literally pick back up where we left off and our conversations have grown deeper over the years. Our history binds us together.

College brought me deep friends. Each year we retreat and try to keep in touch in the in-between. They are my people and I don't want to rotate out.

After college friends are hard. I think it's worth it so I'm doing things and putting myself out there. Watching tv shows that may not normally be my choice, attending parties and trying activities, sending text messages, cards and offering up meals, prayers and laughs. There's risk and there may hurt, but there's also reward.

So now I'm redefining my friend-style. 

I will be DEEP, diving into the pain, the heartache, asking the questions and really listening.

I will be WIDE, inclusive of others, willing to open my arms and my heart to possibilities.

I will be SEASONAL, standing by my friends through whatever season they be journeying through and inviting them into my season.

 

Joining in on the Five Minute Friday link up with Lisa-Jo Baker and also shouting out to Katie, a great friend who has stuck by me through many seasons and has gone into the depths. Go visit her, too, would you? 

Five Minute Friday: Crowd

With some prompting from my friend Katie, I'm joining Lisa Jo Baker  for Five Minute Friday, my first ever. Basically you write unedited for 5 minutes on the prompt which this week is CROWD. Here we go!

Crowds. Love 'em!

As an oldest child in a family of 4 and growing up on a camp I've been surrounded with crowds my whole life. I'm an extrovert in that I get my energy from being around lots of people. I suffered from "FOMO" before I knew it was a thing. In college if I found myself sitting alone for longer than half an hour I immediately started looking for a group of people to join in with.

And then I moved to Northern Minnesota for a year. Nothing in Northern Minnesota is crowded unless it's the frozen lake on an ice fishing Saturday. It's beautiful and serene but when you can drive for 20 minutes without passing a single car, you're out there.

At first it was hard. Where were the people? How would I survive? How would I ever find energy if I couldn't draw from a group? I was so far out there I didn't even have a library to get new books from. So I started spending more and more time alone. Well, alone with my laptop and seasons of Friends.

I didn't love that "uncrowded" season of my life, but I got through it.

When I found myself living back in a place where I had neighbors, plans and crowds around me again I realized I'd changed.

This extrovert had discovered an introverted side that I never would've guessed existed.

Nowadays I need that balance and I think that's come from my season of quietness but also from maturing and growing up a little. Rather than run to a crowd to fill my time I need to reconnect with myself (and still sometimes with that laptop and seasons of Once Upon A Time). My soul starts to feel crowded if I don't give myself that breathing space and I think that's a good place for me to be in.