I had a delightful phone call with my friend Katie this week, and we found ourselves returning to a favorite subject—making and keeping friends. I realized again how much I have to say about this topic and so am beginning an occasional series here to explore it.
About a decade ago, I thought I was pretty good at friendships. I had just moved to Bellingham, I was meeting lots of other parents, and I was really taking seriously the challenge of moving to a new town. I was introducing myself to people, initiating coffee dates. I even started a women’s spirituality group to bring all my new acquaintances together. I ended up overburdening it with unrealistic expectations and disbanding it, and that’s just one of the many lessons I’ve had in the last 30 years. Lessons in the tidal rhythms of friendship.
Sometimes the tide is high, and sometimes its low. And it’s always changing. In friendship, I’ve had to remind myself over and over that the definition of something good isn’t that it lasts forever! I’ve had friends come into my life for a season, and we just can’t get enough of each other. Or we can’t avoid each other! We’re working on something side-by-side, or we happen to have a clearing in our lives and schedules for a few months or years. In that season, the tide is high. And inevitably, except for a much smaller group of soulmates, the tide recedes again. Our children aren’t friends anymore or our priorities change. PTSA is over and we don’t have a reason to see each other once a week. Or we stop being as attracted to one another as we once were for many reasons. And all of this is okay. In fact, it might be a sign of a healthy ecosystem.
I realized a few years ago that I was suffering under a compulsion to intimately connect with every potential friend, and this was actually causing me to protect myself more. I didn’t have the energy to do that, and conserving my energy made my interactions with people less joyful, heavier. At 51, I’m learning to trust the tidal rhythms more.
Twelve years ago, I remember reading Anna Quindlen’s memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and being green with envy at how she describes her midlife best friend, how they talk on the phone every day and meet up almost as often. At the time, my kids were 6 and 10. I was trying to grow my consulting practice, cover childcare while my husband worked overnight medic shifts, and somehow get exercise, sleep, and vegetables, too. I said to myself, “Honey, your friendship needs will get met. What you need now is different than what you’ll need later. Just keep being the kind of person other people want to be friends with.”
As I prepare to be an empty nester, this self-talk is needed again. What kind of friend do I want to be? What kind of friends do I want? It’s tempting to think our longings can be answered by locking something down. And it’s always tempting to compare ourselves to others, how they seem to be more connected, charismatic, or likeable than we are. I haven’t found either of these orientations useful. Instead, I’m floating on the tides, open and porous. I’ll keep you in the loop about how it’s going.