A Good Butt Kicking By a Good Friend

If you look up "friendship quotes" on Google you'll find a whole lot of quotes that talk about friends being there for each other. Sayings like, "I've got your back", "I'll be the shoulder you cry on" and "Friends are there for one another" are some of the most common.

"Friendship isn't about whom you have known the longest... It's about who came, and never left your side..." - Unknown

"A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. " ~Douglas Pagels

In short:

Friends are there; thick - thin.

Friends show up when no one else does.

Friends tell the truth.

Friends don't avoid their friends.

... Unfortunately, I'm guilty of being one of those crappy friends. No, really.

I'm not always there through thick and thin; sometimes I run, and run fast.

I don't always show up; sometimes I'm tired, and that's my excuse.

I don't always tell the truth; sometimes, even when I don't outright lie, I just stay silent and let my friends talk without any input, even if an alarm is going off in my head saying "this is wrong, speak up, say something".

And sometimes I just plain avoid my friends. When my life feels like hell (or I rig it up to feel that way) the first thing I do is put my friendships on pause and tell them to shut up, hold on, and wait until I'm in a more secure spot personally to deal with them.

Which means I'm a sucky friend. A really sucky friend.

So why? Why the avoidance? Why the running? Why the place-on-hold shizzle?

I've been asking myself that over, and over, and over, and over. And this is what I've come up with:

When I drop my friends off into the time-out corner, I'm allowing myself to step back from the emotion that stems from caring about them, their lives and their decisions, to solely focus on my own. This is not always a bad thing. It's probably not healthy to always be depressed, sad, excited, anxious, etc, etc, for all of my friends all the time, but I sure as heck should stick by them when they are going through those things.

I'm never going to be in a perfectly stable spot personally. I'll never have everything figured out. There will always be something that comes up which could get in the way if I let it. But that's life and that's just the way things work. That doesn't mean I can check out and expect to check back in to find the status of those friendships exactly how I left them.

I think the difference between the friend I am now and the friend I should be is in the way I am a friend - what kind of friend I am.

You see, you can't always be the friend who's shoulder people set their sobbing head on - sometimes you gotta be the friend that verbally kicks the crap out of their bad ideas. Sometimes you've got the be the bad guy (ultimately the good guy in a disguise, who tells the truth and nothing but the truth so help you God). Sometimes you've got to step out of the whirl of emotions your friend is spewing forth and say, "Buck up, dude. You've got some s**t to work out." (Not that I say s**t - ever. Cause I don't. Hence the asterisks.)

All this to say, I'm renewing the way I approach friendships. No more immersing my weak little heart in everyone's emotional tornados. A little more objectivity. A little more butt kicking. A little more faithfulness. A little less running.

That's the kind of friend I want. So that's the kind of friend I'm going to be.

Downtrodden

What they say about mornings is true: everything is new.

Yesterday was one of those days when I could have sworn the world had forgotten about me. I was distressed, distraught, down, and any other "d" word that explains that awful sad, heavy feeling that holds your optimism down like a ball and chain.

But for some strange and marvelous reason, I woke up this morning feeling revived.
Today, God lifted my chin, pointed my head in Crater Lake's direction and said,

"Ellie, look at me. I am here; I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I love you, and I will keep loving you. Don't forget me."