Since then, I have written once. Oops.
Mostly, I think, I didn't write because I lacked the time. But to some extent, I think I didn't write because I felt I had nothing to write about. After getting home, people will invariably ask, "So, how'd your summer go?" and I have found myself more than once in the awkward position of not knowing how to answer them. Was it a good summer? I guess so. Was it hard? Yes. Am I glad to be done with it? To be honest, yes. But how was my summer? Gosh. How do I begin?
It was an odd summer. For the first time at camp, I was on leadership staff, which meant I had the added task of scheduling, training, organizing, communicating, and otherwise leading 12-ish support staff. Not only was I a leader, but I was positively old. Most of the staff this year were just out of high school; I, a year out of a five-year bachelor's degree, was practically ancient. As such, I was supposed to be the wise old sage that knew everything and could solve every problem.
That's how it went in my brain, anyway.
Turns out I'm none of those things. Not practically, anyway. It's been a struggle teaching, too. Teachers and supervisors and those sorts are supposed to know what to do all the time, and they're supposed to take initiative. I'm bad at taking initiative because I'm usually not sure which initiative to take. Leadership is hard and confusing.
But so is friendship. See, I kind of expected to have some difficulty being in leadership. I don't tend to be overly assertive, so it's always a bit of a challenge pretending to be. Friendship, though, is something I do a lot more often, and I think I'm better at it than leadership. Every once in a while I think about how many good friends I have and I'm a little surprised by it. I think I probably just got lucky, honestly.
But it turns out that it's still confusing to me, and I still do it pretty badly sometimes. I think it was the biggest thing I learned this summer, actually, which is a little disappointing, to be honest. Other people came out of this summer having learned amazing things about how God loves them and how they can make a difference in children's lives and how God is still moving in amazing ways today. I learned that I need to not suck at being a friend.
* * * * *
I was older than a lot of people this summer, and I think that made it harder to be really good friends with some of them. I did end up with two really close friendships, though. The three of us kind of formed a core group, actually, and it was closer than perhaps I've ever been with guy friends. One of them was almost exactly my age, and another was several years younger.
It was amazing to have people to talk to all the time. We got really deep really fast. We shared our life stories, our struggles, our thoughts about faith and relationships and hypocrisy in the church and beauty. We talked a lot when one guy broke up with a girlfriend, and then more when he started dating someone else, and we talked a lot when I started to have pretty bad emotional problems, and we probably didn't really talk all that much about the other guy, and he probably deserved more attention, now that I think about it. We two were pretty much basket cases a lot of the time. Me, mostly, to be honest.
But eventually... well, I realized I wasn't content in my friendship, especially with one of the two guys. I really wanted him to spend more time and effort on me and our friendship, and I really got kinda jealous when he started spending time with a girl. I guess this happens a lot with guy friends, but it felt awful. I felt betrayed and neglected, and I felt that this special thing that we had was crumbling. Now that I write about it, I realize that probably wasn't the case at all, but it's what it felt like at the time.
See, at some point, I really started to feel fulfilled in this friendship. I've always had a bit of a hard time relating to other guys--I've never been very athletic or into cars or fixing things or video games or anything--and so whenever I do have really good relationships with guys, I get really excited about them, and this was a really good friendship. I felt like this friend understood me, that he liked me, that he valued me a lot, and it feels really good to be valued by someone.
And I think I started to crave that feeling. It meant that, to someone, I was worth something, and I think I've always struggled with feeling like I'm worth much of anything. I think maybe it comes from being the firstborn and always being expected to be good at at stuff. Eventually you realize that you're not the best at everything, and that comes as a kind of a shock, and so you look for other things to validate you. For me, that has often been friendships.
At any rate, it got pretty unhealthy. I thought about it all the time, and I was really concerned with this girl. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea, that he should wait and slow down. I still think that was probably pretty good advice. But mostly, I think I was concerned because I didn't want to become irrelevant. I still wanted to feel like I was important and valued. Of course that wasn't the only reason, but I think it was the biggest one, though I wouldn't have admitted it then.
It got bad enough that I didn't think I could keep being his friend. It was too much of a reminder that I wasn't important, or something like that. I couldn't hardly look at him without feeling rejected, which was really stupid of me, but it was real, anyway. I told him eventually that it was up to him whether or not we would still be friends because it was getting hard for me to put effort into it and I wanted him to try harder. I think what I really wanted was to feel relevant and wanted again. Anyway, I let him decide, and for a whole day he didn't say anything at all. Right now, I don't really blame him. I was pretty immature about the whole thing. We didn't talk much the next week.
It took that whole week for me to realize what an idiot I'd been. It all kind of hit me the very last night he was at camp. I don't even remember why I realized it. I was talking to someone about it all, and I was very frustrated, and then all of a sudden I knew I needed to talk to him and apologize. I didn't really understand what I needed to apologize for, so I wrote him a letter, just to get it into words. (I ended up talking to him about everything, so I still have the letter, which I think I'll keep. It's good evidence to prove that I can learn how to be selfless, even after trying really hard not to be for months.)
I started by thanking him for being a good friend. He wasn't perfect, but I think he did a pretty good job, much better than I would have if I were his age and in his position. I put a lot of weight on him, and he held it pretty well. He always sympathized, and he tried really hard to remind me about God and that he loved me like a father loves his son. It's a lesson I need to learn many times over, apparently.
After that I started to apologize. I said I was sorry for being so needy. I said that I had begun to "look up to you for comfort, for wisdom and understanding and guidance and love," that I had wanted his friendship to fill some sort of emptiness, that I was jealous after all. Reading it again now, it was really pretty humbling. I probably didn't say it very well out loud because I never say important things well out loud.
I had realized that night that I was playing the wrong role. I wanted to be waited upon, but what I really should have done was seek to serve. Instead of being catered to, I should have tried to cater to him. I should have been the big brother watching out for my younger friend, but somehow those roles got switched, and I looked to him to somehow help me. Of course there are times when we need people to help us and show us we are loved, but that's not what I'm talking about. I felt like I needed that all the time, and that was silly and excessive.
* * * * *
I think there's a real kind of joy that comes with being someone's friend, I mean really investing in someone and expecting nothing in return. I think it really is better to give than to receive, and that seems especially true with friendship. I have a friend, someone who's older than me and lives halfway across the world in New Zealand, who has really convinced me of that. He finds all kinds of joy being friends with younger guys and helping them grow into knowing Jesus better. And he really cares, too. I get really long e-mails from him every once in a while, and sometimes he sends me pictures of the places he travels to and the people he knows, and he doesn't expect anything in return, though I usually try to respond. Last week I got a package in the mail, all the way from the other side of the world, that he sent as a late birthday present. It made me feel great, but I think it made him feel even better. We Skype sometimes, and he usually has to go before I do because he's going to visit another friend who has asked him to come over. The last time we talked I almost cried because I thought what he did was so beautiful. It makes me feel like I have a lot of room to grow as a friend, but it gives me hope, too. My Kiwi friend loves people really well, and it gives him joy. I think, maybe, I can do that, too.
Since camp ended, I've kept in touch with my two friends better than I ever have before. I've even seen them both. I think they might be my best friends, though like I said, I do have a lot of great friends. I'm happy to say that I have a better friendship with the one I struggled with now. I still struggle to be a good friend, but I'm better. I stayed the night once and it didn't even bother me to talk about his girlfriend, and I was happy to ask questions about her. It's been much healthier, I think, because I'm thinking more about how to bless him, and I think he does the same for me.
Maybe friendship is only really possible when you are willing to give and not get anything in return. Of course, that means that you're dependent on another person, which is scary. I mean, if you give of yourself to someone, there is no guarantee that they will give back, and you might just be stuck giving. I don't know if that is ultimately sustainable, but still it seems like a truer kind of love.
I read an article recently that said that maybe we should bring back the idea of vowed friendships, where people make commitments to each other publicly, almost like marriage, so that a friendship can't simply dissolve. That sounded like a good idea to me, because I've had a lot of close friendships just sort of disappear when they move or I move or someone gets married. But then I read another article that said that wasn't the point of friendships, that they have to be open, that if a friend can't choose to either invest or not invest that it doesn't mean as much, and that made sense to me, too.
It seems like, if I'm going to have a good, healthy friendship, my goal should be to give to the relationship, not take from it. It's natural for me to want to take. I like affection. I like knowing that, to somebody, I'm worth something, because like I said, I don't always believe it myself. I love getting letters, but anyone who has sent me one will tell you that I'm really bad about responding.
But friendship, like any relationship, I think, is about learning to get out of yourself, to get into the head and heart of another human being and enter into their circumstances, their desires and fears and thoughts and feelings. The Bible talks a lot about being one in community, about weeping with those who weep and mourning with those who mourn, about sharing joy and heartache, and that means that I need to be able to go into a friendship with an open heart, not expecting one thing or another. As a friend, I make myself available, with no agenda, without expecting that they will immediately love me back. In humility, I count a friend as more significant than myself.
I suppose that is the essence of love, putting other people's needs above your own, and I guess that's why it's so hard. But a friendship centered on me is no fun at all. I found that out this summer. It was miserable. Selfless friendship seems like a simple concept, but I think it will take a lot of practice to get it right. It's not very natural, you know. But I think it will be worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment