Friends

Heidi's post about The Little Prince added to my already growing reflections about what makes a close friend. Also, meeting Leah in Linfield has left me a lot to think about. We realized that we have known each other for eight years on-line. It was very exciting to see each other face to face for the first time. Theoretically, meeting an online friend seems like it would be very awkward and a little scary. It is pretty easy to give people a false impression of yourself over the internet, either intentionally or unwittingly. The written word, however, which is mostly how I know Leah, is a powerful self expression tool. Leah is just like herself as I know her, only not written down. A little quieter than I had come to imagine from reading her. I should have figured that anyone who writes as thoughtfully as Leah does would be somewhat introverted. Now I'm wondering if I give the impression of being more outspoken than I am. (HA!)

I haven't made any friends at SFCC. I will be relieved to leave most of the people behind. There are people I like: some foreign students that I tutor, one or two art students, some theory classmates. But these are not the kind of people I would want to invite to my house and share with my family. That has been the definition of a close friend for me for many years. When you become friends with Zita Louise, you get her whole family in the package, with all their oddities and ability to embarrass me. Even Leah knows Dana and Clara and Mom a little from the old Tolkien Discussion board where we met. As I will be going away from home next year, how will I define a close friend?

Also, many of my friendships are about to become long distance friendships, like Leah. It's a little frightening. What will happen with those relationships? Jessica has been away at college the last four years and, while we have grown in different ways and probably changed a lot, we are still friends and being together is like coming home. The main problem is that everyone is doing such exciting things. I feel really lucky that I stayed home and got to watch some of my friends have college adventures. I have been able to grow with them and share s few experiences. Now they will be taking on the next set of challenges and I will be, as usual, a step or two behind, taking my time. I sort of wish I could go back to my state of limbo and just be around watching.

The other very scary thing is that I am SO slow to make new friends.
Everyone says that you become friends with people who have interests in common. That's very true. But I also have very close friends who have little in common with me. They tend to be the ones I have known since a common favorite color was grounds for friendship.

What is a superficial commonality, and what is really important in making a friend? I can talk for hours with someone who reads the same kind of books, and yet, we are not necessarily friends. Then there are times when I am with someone and I just know that we are going to be friends, before we even have a real conversation. There are so many different aspects of a person's character at work. The aggravating thing is that I can only really look for the superficial things in a person and hope for the more fundamental ones.

The single most important and fundamental aspect of a good friend is Christ. I don't have any non-Christian friends, and it's not because I don't know any agnostics. I have long conversations with them on every topic I would discuss with a Christian friend. But somehow they are never the people I would go out of my way to spend time with. And that's hopeful, because I can predict, to a certain extent, where I will find Christians. After that, we are back to the tiresome dilemma of whether they will be the sort of people I like to be friends with on all those other superficial levels.

Friends are a gift from God. All my closest friends showed up just when I needed them and I have to trust that I will find some wherever I end up. This is the answer and conclusion that I come to every time. It's really annoying to come to a leap of faith at the end of your reasoning process. It's not satisfying at all. But it's all I have to go on.
I'm back to being the lady-in-waiting.
Where is Lady Sadie? Lady Sadie waits.
(And if you know that book reference, we could probably be good friends.)