Dear Friends,

I should first say that I am an introvert, quite extremely, and could do well as a hermit. I have to work on friendship, to be honest. It doesn't come easily, requires a lot, and yet, it is so necessary. Before writing this, what I was jokingly calling my exploit against humanity, I decided to give it one last go -maybe represent the most pathetic part of myself, add in a little research, and hopefully receive some comments that will cohere the fuzzy, dangerous, powerful concept of friendship that I was/am well-prepared to ditch for good!

The good, the bad, the ugly

I decided last week that I have 0 friends.

How I discovered this, I will recount in accurate detail, though it will sound like a pathetic lamentation.

It was my birthday (oh yes, the classic beginning)... and on my birthday I received a call from my brother, a text from my sister-in-law, and a text from my dad. Three happy birthdays! Well, Patrick and my mom remembered, but they don't count. I make the rules.

That wouldn't have bothered me, and never has in the past, except that it compounded with previous slights.

Over a month ago, Patrick lost his job. In less than 24 hours we had moving boxes and were determined to leave Southern California once and for all. We were excited, had been looking to leave, were desperate for greener pastures and blue skies (literally), and the two weeks that we had to prepare were joyful, exciting, fun, and painless. We invited our friends over, sent one invite for a giant potluck, for one last gathering of 14+ in our 400sqft garage apartment for games, laughter, food, and a large circle of prayer. People came and went; my previous students remained the longest, the most reluctant to say goodbye. They shed tears, left us notes and gifts to remember them by, then left long after dark.

During this evening I distributed 15 hand-written notes and15 unique bracelets to 15 women who had been a significant part of my life for the past four years. I wanted them to known what they had meant to me, and that each bracelet should serve as a reminder to pray for one another. I know that it's reminiscent of 4th graders with BFF necklaces, but I wanted a tangible way to glue women together, as we are often disjointed in our own coveted, protected lives.

We left, but returned to Long Beach briefly to pick up our car just two weeks after leaving. I couldn't tell what I felt while we stood at the airport bus stop, waiting to board our first public bus in America... riding the bus isn't an issue for us, as we look forward to a city where we can depend on public transit, but my emotions stirred at the realization that there was no one to pick us up. How many times had we opened our home, our lives, made dinners, dessert, shared books, conversation, movies, and time --I'm not counting, I'm not, but evaluating, sifting, observing --at least 4 nights per week, at least, for nearly 4 years. And when we returned, standing at the bus stop, I felt betrayed.

In the midst of moving, boxes, craziness, having only a small suitcase of clothes and eating sandwiches for a quick meal -every meal, I was removed mentally from Long Beach. Patrick and I had the thrill of adventure in road trips and new places -we hiked in rain forests, stopped along the road in water-front cabins, and sipped Austrian wine in the setting sun of Port Townsend, and still, as our travels took us here and there, I wondered about this person and that person, prayed for a marriage, a health issue, a career, a relationship...my friends were still with me as a discipline. So I sent a note far and wide, personal, intricate, and to them, to tell them of my silly adventures, and ask them to share theirs. Two people replied. Of 20.

And because I found myself enumerating, against my will on July 17 around 5pm, I realized that not one text or phone call or email or letter had been offered that I had not first initiated.

So, stunned, I added my three happy birthdays, zero replies to the notes or prayer bracelets, no one to pick us up at the airport, 2 replies to my email, and zero contact in any other medium to equal a sad little lump in my throat.

And to add to the misery, a very close friend from high school was getting married at the end of the week, and although I had made repeated attempts to contact her in the past few years, I couldn't even wish her well or hear about the princess dress that this lovely ballerina wore for her big day.

Some would get angry. Some depressed. Others...well, I don't know how others would react, but I first thought, of course. That's how it's always been. No one cares about me. I'm just a freak. I don't need people anyway. I hate friends. People are so fake... and that's about as far downhill as I got until I forced hardness into my heart and bitterness took over.

I'm very tempted to insert a light-hearted joke, poking fun at myself to erase the big target on my back. The bitterness has melted over the past several days, so it would be easy to shrug this off, but I just can't. I was and am very confused by this reality. I almost called it an account, a story, like it happened to someone else, or in the past, but it is my present reality.

And the reason that I really can't let this go and laugh is that it isn't just my present reality, but it is real for far too many people.

The good, the bad, the ugly

I shared in the disclaimer that I have to work at friendship because it doesn't come easily. Part of what I do to generate depth or interest (on my part, since people tend to scare me), is to ask questions and listen -very well. People have stories to tell. Some may come right out with them, and others come as you spend months and even years gathering and pasting little fragments together. Eventually you will see a flurry of bold and light colors, thin and thickly etched, some points with clarity and others that have been blurred and start to come into focus. One's colors don't look like mine; I haven't yet met a person whose colors even compliment mine well. Often they clash or represent opposing ends of the spectrum. I tend to think my colors are pretty. Their colors on the other hand, well,...

I'm staring at a garden, that's why colors come to mind. I dislike the colors purple and orange, especially together! But I'm shocked at the thought that I feel free to dislike people as easily as colors. She's purple -yuck. And she's orange. The last time I wore/painted/decorated with orange was a disaster. They're too hard to match, don't go with my outfit or fit my color scheme, and it reminds me of this terrible experience I had with a great-aunt who always wore that color purple, so I'm not even going to try. I like my pallet, my style, my, my, my, my.

I like myself and people like me because they remind me of myself! Not to mention, they're easy to know, easy to be with, easy to communicate with, and or course I admire them because, after all, they remind me very much of someone I know. Oh yes, me.

This is human nature. Although I use myself as the dummy (first-person pronoun), I have been very diligent to be aware of this tendency and work against it.

People are annoying, I say this all of the time. People talk too loud, they pry, some aren't stylish, thin, or popular (for the shallow crowd). Oh my goodness, some people talk and talk and talk! Others like to pray, drink wheat grass for every meal, reminisce about the same story, tell you all of the dirt about their coworkers, get fired up about anything and everything, promote themselves and their accomplishments. We are all an imposition, needy at the wrong times, overly sensitive, bossy, and at times rude. So each of us, for one reason or another is a purple or an orange -offensive simply by being.

Sadly, I hear this over and over and over again as I listen. She is/they are this, that or the next thing, so I left the church, or I stopped calling, or I was hurt so I'm not going back, or I'm too busy to bother with her neediness. I rarely, if ever, hear someone talk about a really great, amazing, or supportive friend who is loved, dearly. Complaints, criticism, jealousy, rejection, annoyances, and grievances permeate the air, poisoning and tainting reputations, bruising, attacking identities, suffocating love, hope, and joy with bitterness and rejection.

And what I hear is blah, blah, blah, I don't like her/them because I am too self-absorbed or lazy to get beyond a point of comfort or complacency, to forgive, or to empathize with love or compassion. Therefore, I reject her. She is not worth my effort, my time, or my attention. Let someone else deal with that, that problem.

I'm busy. La lala, I'm distracting myself, or justifying my behavior, then surrounding myself with like-minds whose forked tongues echo and soothe my justifications, feasting on that problem with our latte's as we meet for coffee.


the good, the bad, the ugly

8 of 10 women who I meet with have struggled with anxiety or depression. I am not saying that this is a direct correlation. It could be something in the water or in the vaccinations that we all had as children. But weird or not, popular, or normal, we have two options, to find like-kinds, comfort, and herd (that isn't a very active verb). Or, to actively seek those who are lonely, hurting, on the fringe, without, broken, rejected, new, seeking... And I don't mean a false "Hi, how are you?" and forget the person's name in two seconds. Or a committed exchange of niceties week after week. I mean to take on the responsibility of caring for and nurturing a person's soul, not for what it brings you, but for the investment of christian love in them!

I'm an introvert, remember? There is nothing natural in me that is drawn toward strangers. In fact, I naturally repel strangers. Yet I choose to love. Friendship is a discipline, practiced in faith, believing that God will do in you what you do not have naturally within yourself to do!

A counselor told me that I need a friend who would let a cake burn in the oven to come and be with me if I called. Yeah, that only made matters worse because I couldn't think of a single person who was willing to fit the job description. And I bent to put my head in my hands when I thought about how I had done that (okay, no actual cakes were burnt in the process of friendship, only metaphorical ones) on several occasions. I've worn costumes, walked through dingy Hollywood streets at 11:30pm (on a school night), participated when I just wanted to go to bed, been the guinea pig for an impromptu make-over, had people over for dinner, dessert, and coffee probably 1,000 times because I wanted to invest Christian love in them. I really, from the bottom of my tiny heart (that is two sizes too small), wanted to be a friend because I knew that they were more important than me. 

Being a friend isn't always fun, easy, or rewarding. In my case, we saw the effort without the return on investment. And it hurts at times. But do we live for ourselves, or are we to embody the life that Jesus modeled for us, and seriously go to, what we tend to think of as extreme, lengths to be a friend. In actuality it's a click "reply," and a painstaking, time consuming, two-sentence message. Then another click, "send." But the effort to move our hearts from being self consumed (mine included -this email is evidence), to others-centered, is Herculean, yet not optional, in my opinion.

Here's where I would like feedback: Is it optional, to think of and love others? If your answer is no, then what does your life say?