Having Enough (In a Have-It-All World)

I got one of my ultimate joys yesterday — sitting in a restaurant with three old friends, us four grown women laughing so loudly that others in the restaurant looked at us. It puzzles me when people are annoyed by laughter. I simply love the sound. (Except when it is at someone else’s expense.) But, generally, a group of friends laughing, to me, is just beautiful, one of life’s great gifts.

And, this particular group laughing was especially poignant. One friend lost her husband less than two years ago. Another was recently diagnosed with MS. And, I was just awed, talking with these women, looking at these women, so strong and so connected and so alive despite their hard times. I felt privileged to be laughing with them, and to be learning from the way they are handling their situations. Laughter not as denial, but as a way to experience the spectrum of life’s emotions, not just give into one. As a way to face challenges with grace and perspective. As a way to get through scary stuff with people we trust.

As I drove the 50 minutes home from this brunch yesterday, I thought about how I could’ve talked with these women for many more hours, how we barely scratched the surface in our two-hour, yearly catch-up session. And I felt lucky for that, too. How fortunate to feel that way, that the time spent together felt short.

I’ve written here before about how none of my closest friends live close enough to come over for tea. How some of my standby friendships have been shifting, even disappearing, as our lives change. And, yet, how my female friendships feed my soul in a way I feel I’d starve without. So, in the spirit of Having Enough, rather than focusing on my hunger for old friends in my neighborhood, or the loss of friendships I cherished, I decided yesterday to just enjoy the two hours with some amazing old friends 50 miles up the road, enjoy the connection and the laughter, and quit lamenting that I don’t experience it more often these days.

Funny enough, too, in working on my Having Enough attitude lately, and just letting go of focusing on any lacking, I am finding myself slowly connecting with more women in my community. I’ve had some great moments lately with women I’m just getting to know. It takes time to know others well enough to be the loud, laughing group of grown women in the restaurant. It takes shared experiences. Openness. And great good fortune.

A toast, to the laughter of friends.

This term came to me today, when talking with a woman who seems to feel the need to compare everything.  Not with malice, but compare nonetheless.

The comparison is often disguised as a compliment, and almost always lands in the other person’s favor. “Oh, your hips are so much narrower than mine.” “Your child is so much calmer than mine.”  ”Your house is so much cleaner than mine.”  (Please note that most of the time these statements are clearly untrue!)

Then, that begs the horrible back and forth that my DH and I jokingly refer to as the “YSS Dance.” (”You’re so skinny! No, you’re so skinny!”)  I love to dance, but for that one I will always rather sit out.

Nobody wins in a culture of comparison.  There is no right answer to those comments.  What, do you then insult yourself or insist that you, in fact, don’t sleep or clean your house? (I’ve tried this — “Really, you should see all the crumbs under the rug!” — but, ick.  What does that accomplish? Who does it make feel better?)

It’s hard not to join the dance, and feel the need to compare myself. And it often feels that if I don’t self-degrade or compare back in return (sometimes I just answer with silence), I’m seen as snooty or rude.  It’s a no-win situation.

Really, I just want to say, my silence is in honor of you!  You’re above this!  Can’t we just be comfortable with ourselves and each other?!  

At heart, that is what I think this is really about.  Being comfortable enough with ourselves — who we are, what we have, what we look like, all that stuff — that we don’t feel the need to always debate whether we are better or worse off than others.

I know, that’s not an easy task, and I certainly haven’t achieved it fully yet. Perhaps it’s hard-wired, and a crazy notion to think we can change this. But, you know, I’ll take crazy over the “YSS Dance” any day.  Why couldn’t we change this?

What do you think would happen if everyone vowed to stop these comparison conversations?  Just each and every person stop before saying the comparing thing. Or greet the comparison with a smile and silence. What would our conversations sound like, in the dressing rooms, on the playground?  

Do you think it would be different?  Would our culture change with this adjustment?

I’d sure like to try it and see. 

My sincere apologies to any regular readers for my delinquency in posting this month. You see, my 22-month-old has turned into a teenager overnight. (And I’ve had a big deadline, but that’s less interesting for the purposes of this blog.)

My sweet, cuddly baby is here in just glimpses these last couple of weeks. The rest of the time, it’s like she’s going through puberty. You know, the natural development. The mood swings. The desperate need for intense attention and wild independence, changing from moment to moment. The rebellion (at this age, to naps). And, the trouble with sharing.

Sharing.

It’s a tough concept, for two-year-olds and, frankly, for adults.

The idea is lovely. We are generous with our things, our time, our feelings, and our attention. We let other people have a turn. And we hope they let us have a turn, too.

The actual practice, though, is complicated.

How much sharing is OK before we start to feel we’ve given too much? What if the other person doesn’t share back? Are there times when it’s OK not to share?

I’m a fan of the idea that the more we give, in the larger sense, the more we receive. I truly do believe our generosity pays, sometimes in ways we can’t immediately see, and the more confident we are in ourselves the more we are able to share with others. However, I also understand that we need to make some kind of boundaries so as not to get walked all over.

So, how do you illustrate all of this to a toddler? By example, of course — right? But how does sharing really play out in our grownup lives? In friendships lately, I’ve had to set boundaries with some while opening up more in others. In professional encounters, I’ve had to attempt to understand others’ quite different concepts of sharing and not sharing this year. In marriage, we’re constantly renegotiating the sharing of chores and time.

It never gets less complicated, really. Sharing is a wide and murky river, never static or crystal clear. It starts tossing us around before we’re even two. I see it in its most dramatic form in my tantrum-prone toddler lately. It’s hard.

Still, I suppose it is basically just taught and understood by example. By showing that we continue each day to navigate that murky river to the best of our abilities. Being kind and generous, and true to ourselves. Believing that, for the most part, giving to others does not take away from ourselves. And, yet, seeing that speaking up for ourselves (with respect for others) is important.

We learn so much by watching the behavior of others (some to emulate, some to not emulate). As parents, we can just try to be an example worthy of following. As people, I guess it’s the same.

And, sometimes, if we feel the need to act out and say “mine!”, well, it’s only natural. Maybe it needs to be said sometimes. Or maybe we’ll learn to share more when we get a little bigger.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friendship, and how much it plays into my idea of success and fulfillment in my life. As a woman in my mid-30’s and a new mother, I am finding myself in major transition with some of the friendships I’ve had for years.

For some of us, our lives are taking us in very different directions. For others, we are seemingly going in the same direction, but that seems to draw out even more differences in how we are approaching certain life choices. And then there’s this phenomenon of making new friends, which we all do throughout our lives, and gauging which are the temporary or situational ones and which may stick around until we’re old ladies in purple hats together (both kinds being OK).

I’m realizing that successful friendships don’t necessarily have anything to do with whether two people (in my case, usually two women) are the same age or marital status or whether or not we both have children. Some of my single friends are closer to me than ever, while others have all but disappeared; and some of my mom friends and I can talk about everything still, while walls are being built with others. And I’m just beginning to make new potential friends in vastly different life stages and situations.

So, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what, then, seems to be the “sticking factor” — that intangible connection that allows a friendship to really survive through years and changes. I still don’t have a real answer, but I’ve come up with a few thoughts:

1. Commitment to the Friendship — What I’m seeing is that when two friends have equal commitment to a friendship, it can usually work no matter what differences arise. This commitment could manifest vastly differently with different friendships, but the key is that it is in balance.

For instance, balance could mean two friends are equally committed to talking once every few months, and have a lovely conversation catching up and reminiscing, then are fine with not hearing from one another until the seasons turn again. Or, it could mean two friends who are there for each other through thick and thin, dealing with the everyday details and the life traumas, talking often and going after one another to see what’s up if there hasn’t been contact in a given week. Either scenario can work, but if there’s one friend who wants a holiday card relationship and the other who wants the BFF relationship, that’s where things fall apart.

2. Basic Values – The most successful friendships I have and have seen are between people who share a set of basic values in common. Now, this certainly doesn’t mean they agree on everything (how boring would that be?), but at core there is a shared understanding of foundational values, such as how we treat people, how we view honesty, loyalty, life purpose, etc. It’s not about whether two friends share the same pastimes or favorite books that matters, but these fundamental values. When they are out of line I think it’s harder to stay connected.

3. Willingness to Face the Unpretty Stuff — Recently, a friend told me that a friend of hers (who I don’t know) said women who argue with their friends are “wierd.” In our culture, it seems that it is more acceptable for women to disagree with, argue with, or break up messily with men than it is for these normal occurrences to happen between women. It’s part of what Oprah calls “the disease to please” among women, the need for us to be so nice that we would rather let a friendship silently fade away than deal with an issue that may be less than pleasant to take it to the next level.

I think the deep, evolving friendships that stand a chance for the long haul (this may not apply for the holiday card friends) must have moments of disagreement, or bad behavior, and then the getting through it. Pretending everything is always pretty, in my book, is a recipe for denial and distance. This isn’t to say I argue often with my friends, or enjoy the ugly stuff, but I think the friends that last tacitly agree that we take the good, bad, and the ugly of one another, and talk about it.

***

Losing friendships can be heartbreaking, and finding new ones challenging. But, the joy I get out of the friendships that stick — and even the ones that fade away mutually after their purpose has been served — is one of the best parts of life for me. I can’t imagine calling myself “successful” without close friends whom I can really be myself with. After all, if we can’t share it, where’s the fun in it?

This somewhat convoluted train of thought will continue; there’s way more to say on this topic. In the meantime, though, I’d love to hear your thoughts about “sticking factors” that make friendships last.