A Story About Friendship.

I had a friend spend a few days on my couch.  He was waiting for his new apartment to be available.  He needed somewhere to crash.  He was, in fact, my first real roommate a very long time ago when I got my first real apartment.  We were ok roommates.  We both worked in sales, and had separate groups of friends.  We weren’t the kind of roommates that hung out all the time.  We had been friends since high school, but lost touch during the college years, and reconnected when we got our first jobs after college.  Those years are a blur; I was always all over the place. Between work, running back and forth from the city and suburbs, and work happy hours that went way to late I was never around.  He also had a really busy schedule, and so we were roommates and friends, but not the way we are today.

Last night we went out for drinks and started talking, ‘You know if we were the people we are today, we would have been really good roommates.’  ‘Yeah, we would have.’  I know why.  Back then neither of us was out, we weren’t having honest conversations, and we were so young and trying to figure it out.  Moving at 100 miles an hour because you’re in your early twenties and you can.  Over the years though him and I have grown up together.  We have become different people then we were then.  And over the years we have done that together.

I don’t give up on friendships.  They have sustained me through the years.  Most of my friends I’ve had ten plus years.  I invest long term.  We may not see each other often, or talk everyday, but I will always reach out, ‘Lets grab dinner and catch-up.’ I will literally forgive you for almost anything.  I have a deal with myself, I’m either going to never talk to you again, or whatever upset me I’m going to let it go immediately and forgive you.  I don’t have the time or energy to be mad or angry with you.  I want to move past it, because you matter to me.

Through out the week we had real conversations.  We talked about why I’m so attracted to people with baggage, and about his relationship with his family, and about how we both feel like we’re not where we should be.  He challenged me, and I challenged him, and in that we made progress into learning more about ourselves.  He will call me out on my shit.  He won’t just say, ‘You’re right.’  He will ask the questions that are sometimes hard to ask.  I can appreciate that.  That can only happen because of how long we have been friends.  One night this week I said, ‘Oh, I don’t really think I have much baggage…’ ‘Oh honey, you have baggage…’ I laughed, ‘Like what?’ We need the truth. 

I have been so lucky to have really great people in my life over the years.  To have so many of them see it through.  We have grown up together, and because of that, we have this trust circle.  I know I’ll always be ok, because of the people I am fortunate enough to call my friends.  We would be better roommates now, because we are better people.  We are different people.  We have the ability to be honest and challenge each other.  We are no longer those naïve kids scared to talk about real things, and I’m really happy about that.