“Kindred spirit—the very fabric of you is so familiar. It seems as if we are woven of the same thread. “ — Lewis Carter
I celebrate my treasure trove of friends. If I were to sing the praises of each of the glorious women in my life, I would never be able to remove my fingers from the keyboard. Ever. One of the many gifts of being in Twelve-Step recovery is the depth of relationships that are formed. When survivors of a common peril come together, a bond is formed that is never forgotten. Of course, it’s up to us to nurture that bond. And nurture I have. My friends are indeed woven from the same thread—whether met in Twelve-Step rooms or not. We carry each other through the ups and downs and twists and turns of life. Especially since the fire, my friends pulled me forward when all I wanted to do was stop.
In the months after our house burned down, I gained a whole new appreciation of friendship and the dynamics of giving and receiving. Receiving help from people over a prolonged time of trouble can get very interesting for human beings. To be on the receiving end of love and support over time can challenge even the most balanced of us. Our first tendency is usually to wait until we feel better before reaching out. This is so common that it might be the biggest “waiting” we do when it comes to relationships.
Not long after the fire, I dreamt that I had made one too many requests of my friends, which culminated in being shunned by my women’s group. Upon discovering this, all I wanted to do was go home and slam the door. But I knew I didn’t have a home. And, suddenly, I was alone.
I woke up sweating. I knew it was my fear surfacing. I knew it was my concern that I would eventually overwhelm others with my requests and need for support. I am not alone in my discomfort with asking for help. Most people are better at giving than at receiving. We struggle to ask. We don’t want to bother or burden people. We are afraid of appearing needy. Often we experience ourselves as powerful when we can offer love and support to others, but we don’t do quite as well when we are the ones who need to be cared for.
For so many of my early years, when faced with any life stressor, I would retreat and isolate. As it’s said around Twelve-Step rooms, “We solve the loneliness problem by isolating.” Here’s what it looks like: When we are feeling strong and good, we are happy to be with other people. When we are feeling crappy or vulnerable, we wait to feel better before we can bear to expose ourselves to interaction with almost anyone. We isolate and wait for improvement, rather than accepting help from those who are only too willing to give it.
Fortunately, by this point in my life, and dealing with this level of crisis, I knew I needed to run towards people, not away from them. I knew that I needed my friends, perhaps more than ever before, regardless of my concerns.
We stayed in friends’ basements, borrowed houses, and then returned back to basements again. Our friends brought us food, slept over, helped with insurance paperwork, sifted through ashes where our home once was—and, even more importantly, let us slobber on their shoulders—over and over and over again.
Off and on we stayed at my friend Jessica’s. Her entire family welcomed us with open arms and hearts coupled with a genuine invitation to stay as long as we needed. Hmm. A year? How does a year sound, Jessica? I loved it there. I loved being in the metaphorical bosom of one of my best and dearest friends in the whole wide world. Jessica is a rock. Bottom line: Jessica is one of those people that I am not sure I could live—or would want to live—without. In the interest of true friend love, we made a “no leaving” clause early on in our relationship, so we have liberty to unmask our dark sides with each other.
There is great freedom that comes with not having to “behave.” So often in life we are overly concerned with what people will think of us. We try to be good, kind, friendly, and polite—and we can drown in that soup of nice. We wait and wait and wait to finally be ourselves, craving to experience the freedom of authentic self-expression, yet we never do if we don’t let the messy come out as well.
Excerpt from What Are You Waiting For? Learn How to Rise to the Occasion of Your Life, Viva Editions, November 2013
