Really, don’t. And if that’s what you are doing, then just do the thing you carved up instead.
I have a friend, a good friend, who is a very busy person (who isn’t?). We would try to get together from time to time, back when the kids were smaller, and she would tell me she had an hour here or there she could give me, or a bit of time on the following afternoon she could offer. It always made me feel a little little, if you know what I mean.
Like the time I showed up at another friend’s house for a Christmas gift exchange we’d planned among three of us and our toddlers. I’d been so excited to have finally met some other women in this new little community I’d moved into, and I walked up to the house hauling my little sled with my little Tyson and our little gifts, and knocked on the door. And knocked again but there was no answer so I peeked my head in and called out we’re here, and walked in a couple of steps to hear two women sharing their unkind opinions about me and my family and my parenting and all the tender fears I’d spoken into the new friendships with them in those visits we’d had.
I put up some pretty strong cautious-about-friendship walls after that.
Maybe you’ve put up some walls, too. Because Sister, friendship can be a minefield of misstep and misunderstanding. Why is that, I wonder?
Why do I have to compare and compete and judge, even when I don’t want to. Why do I measure my parenting against your parenting, or my shape against your shape, or my faith walk against your faith walk?
It’s exhausting, isn’t it. I’ve been working on it for years. On being who I am and accepting who you are and experiencing the beauty of honest and true relationships. It’s one of the reasons I write what I write and try to be transparent and all that.
So really, don’t feel like you have to carve out time for me, because that’s more about you than it is about me.
If you don’t have time, you don’t have time and I’m fine with that.
If you have a little bit of time, enjoy the little bit of time without making me feel like I’m a sacrifice you are making.
And if you don’t really want to be friends, don’t pretend you do and then talk about me when you think I’m not listening.
And for the record, I’ll do the same with you.
Except when I mess up (and I probably will) and I do something to make you feel like you are a burden or a challenge or, heaven forbid, a project.
I don’t want to carve out time for you. If you are my friend then I want you to know I’m all in. I want to embrace and enjoy and luxuriate in the time I am fortunate enough to spend with you.
We are strong women. Let’s be women who care and are fierce about our love and who can trust each other with our hearts. Let’s work together and be happy for each other and be honest with each other. Let’s support and challenge and encourage each other. Let’s cheer our victories and mourn our losses and put aside our differences.
Let’s forgive.
Let’s be friends.
February 5, 2014 at 5:20 pm
Oh how dreadful, you poor thing. I felt my heart sink into the snow right along with yours on that door step hearing those unkind words born surely of insecurity. Real friendships are so, so rare in my life and even then they are fleeting. It’s a shame and I don’t know the solution.
February 5, 2014 at 6:30 pm
It’s a mystery, how hearts bond and who cares for whom.
February 5, 2014 at 5:37 pm
my time with you isn’t carved out. it’s gift in the email that I sit withand savor!
February 5, 2014 at 6:31 pm
You are kindness and light, my friend.
February 5, 2014 at 5:43 pm
I’d love to live closer.
February 5, 2014 at 6:31 pm
Me too, Naia.
February 5, 2014 at 7:12 pm
Your post comes on a lonely day in a new town with no friends (as yet) and a second phone call in two days from the Principal about my children. The horror of not knowing how to fix the problems, feelings of shame that this man has my number memorized at this point and finds me a pathetic excuse as a mother with children so often in trouble in our new town and a public school and I am spitting angry, crying and dying inside with the knowledge that it was *my*choice to move here with no support system, health failing rapidly from the stress and no clue what to do next. My door would be wide open to you – if for no other reason than to receive your knowledge and wisdom from having “been here before.”
February 5, 2014 at 8:05 pm
Oh Naia. My heart breaks for you. (Have I told you the time my son was kicked out of Sunday school?) I understand. I wish I could sit with you on your couch and pull one of your beautiful quilts over my knees and talk, tea cups in our hands. I’m praying for you tonight.
February 5, 2014 at 11:58 pm
I saw this and had to reply, Naia I am so sorry you are feeling low and struggling to settle in a new town. Maybe your boys are finding their feet too and acting up because of it? You are a wonderful mother, keep a clear head and don’t assume the worst of them or you. Ensure they face consequences and offer a carrot for good behaviour too, maybe a fun trip each weekend?
We are in the gloomy months and if it’s cold out people will be hibinating, it’s early days. Look out for some community event for valentines or Easter. local clubs ( book, photography, knitting, quilting?.. or start one?) the library might be a good port of call for notice boards and a social out of the house place to head too. Are you going to church? how about volunteering at the school or someplace else in town?
Looking into Scouting for the boys might be fun too.
I hope things improve as the season changes for you x
February 6, 2014 at 6:12 am
Aren’t we fortunate to have a little Fay in our lives, Naia. All good words and advice, especially about not getting down on yourself or your family. And February is definitely the gloomiest of months, it’s true. Be sweet to yourself. I’ll be thinking of you today, and Fay is already thinking of you as she’s halfway into hers.
February 6, 2014 at 7:02 am
I am not often called little 🙂
February 6, 2014 at 7:44 am
Thank you to both of you. I am slowly looking into different things around town. With more happening every day, it is hard finding the energy to do so. I’m still trying though.
I’m sorry for hijacking your post. It honestly was not my intent last night.
I’d hug you both (and I don’t hug often, as you know) and offer coffee/tea and warm quilt if you were here. 🙂
Today is a new day.
February 6, 2014 at 2:41 pm
You didn’t hijack it. You started a conversation:) Hope today is the beginning of things turning around.
February 6, 2014 at 4:03 pm
Well, in anger and haste, I made a bet with Caiden that he couldn’t go three days without getting in trouble. He insisted he could. I had a $50 in my wallet and told him, “Prove me wrong and that is yours. If I am right, I get all your money (about $20).” I taped it to the kitchen wall.
Today is day 2 of not getting in trouble. He’s got one day to go.
February 6, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Go Caiden!
February 8, 2014 at 8:58 am
2 times in trouble yesterday. $50 stays mine. 😦
February 8, 2014 at 3:27 pm
Aw:(
February 5, 2014 at 6:36 pm
I would love to not carve out time and visit with you.
February 5, 2014 at 6:43 pm
Haha! That’s awesome:)
February 5, 2014 at 6:55 pm
In regard to the hurt you experienced walking in on that conversation, if I am to get really vulnerable and real here, I will say that I have been that poor friend in my lifetime. Gossip is my sin struggle. Some struggle with greed or pride or fits of rage or other sin temptations. So I have fallen many times. It often comes from a place of jealousy and insecurity and even fear, rather than me feeling better than another person. So perhaps these women were feeling envious of you or insecure in some way…doesn’t make it hurt less or make it okay but I am just saying what I have learned about myself over the years.
February 5, 2014 at 8:00 pm
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I respect your honesty in saying that. I’ve been on both sides, too. Thank you for your courage. Bless you!
February 5, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Oh dear, I hope I have not been that friend, although I think far more often I have been the one with the happy smile, thinking that I found a friend, when the feeling wasn’t mutual at all. And so my heart broke a little when I read this. I want to go back and change it, so that you and Tyson and the little gifts you bore are received with love and gratitude and joy and understanding.
February 5, 2014 at 8:03 pm
That experience changed me. It made me pricklier and more cautious, but it also shamed me because I knew I’d been guilty of talking behind another’s back.
February 5, 2014 at 7:23 pm
Nice post! 🙂
Please check out my post about forgiveness and how it leads to peace, and let me know what you think! 🙂
February 5, 2014 at 8:00 pm
you and i…we would be friends in real life. i love your words. thank you.
February 5, 2014 at 8:12 pm
We’ll be as real as we can be through words:) and thanks. I just found your words, too.
February 5, 2014 at 8:14 pm
words work for me.
I think words are actually pretty real. thanks for finding me.
February 6, 2014 at 10:16 am
Janelle – people do not realize what damage they are really doing…. Or maybe they do and are uncaring people. Either way, having friends like that does not enrich your life….. There are so many more “true friends” out there just waiting for your friendship. 🙂
February 6, 2014 at 2:44 pm
Thant experience happened almost twenty years ago and the sting has faded but the impact has remained. I’ve been blessed with some beautiful friendships over the years. I hope I’ve been a beautiful friend to a few as well. Thanks Susan.
February 7, 2014 at 4:44 am
You talking about my life again? Yes, i have a friend just like that, carve me out some ‘little little’ time and i feel little little in it too, it’s not a good feeling. I want to put it down i want to walk away but sometimes a little little is better than nothing – or is it? I have more pen/blog friends then i have ever had friends in my whole life and it’s all good.
February 7, 2014 at 5:56 am
I have only “put down” a couple of friendships in my life. I’m friendly with them, but my heart isn’t committed anymore. I don’t know if that’s how it should be, since Jesus was all about reconciliation, but it’s a truth in my life.
February 7, 2014 at 6:07 am
I am trying to get busy and then if there is some little time available then the choice is mine, about how i fill it instead of waiting for someone else.