Better Than I Know Myself

I love my friends. I have said this many times before, but I really do think that I have the most amazing friends in the world. I also think they are all empirically attractive people – I’m not sure how that has worked out since I don’t think of myself that highly, so maybe I’m the ugly friend, or I’m just more attractive than I realize. (For those of you who don’t know me as well, please realize I’m not vying for a compliment here nor do I have low self esteem, just throwing stuff out there.) My point though is that I am often reminded of how wonderful my friends are and how blessed I am to have them on the most random of occasions.

Last week I had the opportunity to have dinner with an old friend from high school who I have kept in contact with, but not nearly to the same level as we were in contact before college. He was one of my best friends, is an ex-boyfriend, and is probably one of the few people in the world who know me so well that I am 100% confident that when I say, “You know,” that he actually knows what I am talking about. Prior to our dinner I hadn’t seen him since he left for grad school (about a year and a half ago, maybe longer) but I wasn’t nervous to see him, just excited to catch up because it had been so long. I figured it would be easy to talk and we’d spend an hour maybe two chatting and updating each other about our lives. Well, needless to say, that isn’t exactly what happened.

We spent over three hours covering family, relationships, faith, movies, school, dancing, and so much more. I’ll never forget how he was able to ask a non-direct question in a way that felt like he had some insight into my brain and what I was going through in my life. Maybe it was completely unintentional, but as I began to answer his question I could feel myself shed a protective layer that I didn’t realize I had built up over the last few months. I knew that I could be completely vulnerable and honest with him and that there wouldn’t be any judgment but that I would receive a bluntly honest, yet respectful, response that would challenge me without undermining my intelligence or thought process. It was like he knew me better than I knew myself and I had forgotten what that felt like.

This last week there were a number of things that happened in my life – all good for the most part – but things that kind of left me asking the question, “How is this my life?” I realized after each of these events occurred that there were a few key people who I instantly wanted to tell and who, I knew, would appreciate each story in its entirety. Kind of along the lines of my last post, I realized how I love and need to verbalize my experiences with each of them in order for me to gain my own understanding of it. Each person brings their own perspective and somehow I am not complete in my own comprehension without each of them.

Many of my close friends are no longer local, which means I can’t just show up at their door to share my ridiculousness in person, but it’s nice to know they are only a phone call away. I love them dearly and I hope that they never get bored with my life and abandon me for a more entertaining (or perhaps more sane) friendship with someone else. My life would be so much less without each of them and I don’t think I could be truly happy in life without them. I wouldn’t be able to be my true self. There would always be a wall built up around me and that’s not the kind of life I want to live.

So at the risk of being so cheesy that you want to gag yourself and swear to never read my blog again, thanks for being my friend. You mean the world to me and you all know exactly who you are.