Ode To Friendship

When I count my blessings, I count my friends twice.  A midst the hustle and bustle of life, the joys and sorrows, the triumphs and defeats, the fastballs, the curveballs, and quite frankly, the screwballs, it is my friendships that keep me afloat.  Friends have always played a leading role in my life.  I would say my very first friend was my neighbor Aaron.  He would come over and we would play house....he was the daddy and I was the mommy and we would push around my favorite baby doll, Baby Carrie, in the stroller.  Then I would go to his house, and we would eat saltwater taffy, watch Batman, and play with his dog, Ashes.  When he moved away (I was maybe 4 or 5?), it was my first heartbreak.  

Over the years, you come to know and befriend a lot of people.  There are all different types of friends.  You have your classroom friends, the ones you end up spending a ton of time with in school, your go-to's for all projects, and the recipients of the notes you pass during boring lessons.  You have your childhood friends, the children of your parents' good friends, the ones who live in your neighborhood, or the ones you just happened to meet at a really early age.  You have your activity friends, the ones on your softball team or in your youth group or who happened to join all the same clubs as you.  You have your sibling and cousin friends, who for better or worse (in my case, better) tend to be a part of your life forever.  You have your soul friends, those people who in the first five minutes of knowing them, you feel as though you have known them for many years.

Once you get a bit older, you add some other friend groups (co-workers, friends of friends, maybe mom friends or couple friends or the group you hang out with to watch a certain show).  The other thing that happens is you let some friends go...maybe because you moved or they moved, maybe life just happened and you naturally drifted apart.  Sometimes circumstances change, or you change and realize that there are some people who do not bring out the best in you.  At times, no one says anything, and the flame of the friendship slowly burns out, and other times, you have to put on your big girl panties and have that hard, awkward, and painful conversation.  Or maybe someone has that conversation with you, expressing how something you did or said hurt them deeply, and that they need space...maybe temporarily, or maybe for life.  You may, at that moment, feel that your heart has been broken, and that life as you know it will never be the same.  You are right - it will never be the same, but you will learn, you will grow, and you will make more friends along the way.  This I know to be true.

This is my ode to friendship, to the people in my life who I have shared laughter and tears, the times of celebration, the times of sorrow and grief.  This is to the people who know me in and out, and love me anyway.  These are the people I have studied with, traveled with, and lived with.  These are the people I would do anything for, who believe in my strengths and encourage me to pursue my passions, and who speak the truth and acknowledge my weaknesses.  These are the people who you don't talk to for weeks or months, and then when you do, it's as though no time has passed at all.  These are the people who not only remember your birthday, but spend it with you.  The people who buying gifts  for is not a chore because at any given moment, you can think of a dozen things they would love.  These are the people who sacrificed their time, their energy, their money for your sake during a season when you needed it most.  

Here's to little friends, who may be small, but have taught me so much about embracing all that life has to offer, not forgetting to make time to do the things you love, that God is big and good and strong and gentle all at the same time, and that you are never too old or too young to love others, to create new things, and to dream.  Here's to reading children's books, having snacks, splashing in the puddles, making snow angels, baking cookies, finger painting, collecting rocks and sticks and shells, and never really growing up.

Here's to work friends, the people who become your family during those long shifts at the hospital.  The people who don't just ask if you need help, but insist on answering your other call lights, running your lines, helping with a difficult task, or buying you coffee.  Here's to the people who not only support you during your time together at work, but really get to know who you are and what is important to you.  They support you...showing up for weddings and showers and fundraisers, serving as a tangible reminder that they see you as more than just a nurse, but as a holistic person.  The people you can share ANY story with no matter what, who understands your frustrations and why you might be in the med room crying.  


Here's to the friends that are also family.  The ones who initially are friends by default, but evolve into so much more.  The friends who make family gatherings enjoyable, and who become your partner in crime, your companion for the road, and the ones who you don't worry about whether or not they will still be around in a year or two.  

Here's to the friends who you may not see every day, but when you do see them, you can't imagine ever saying goodbye to them again!  The friends who make it a priority in their lives to visit you, and you them, even if it is inconvenient or expensive.  You do it because you know the pay-off is beyond worth it.  The friends who you laugh with so hard, people start to look and stare.  Of course, you don't care one bit.  The friends who everything you do with is an adventure, whether it is simply going to the grocery store or going to Disneyland.  The ones you spend several days with and suddenly wonder how you only took 2 photos, until you realize you were enjoying yourself WAY too much to even worry about capturing the moments for social media.  

Here's to the friends you call on the way home from work, or after a fight or breakup or when the world just seems too hard to handle.  These friends have seen you cry - makeup running down your face or no makeup at all.  They have seen you at your worst, when you can barely function, and cannot imagine how you will ever be okay again.  They patiently and lovingly take your hand and hold you close, maybe saying something reassuring or maybe nothing at all.  They are perfectly okay with you not being okay.  They are not intimidated by doubt or pain or life's hard moments.  They are all in, for better or worse.  They don't keep score or expect you to snap out of it.  They simply say "I'm here" and they mean it.

Here's to the friends who are your best teachers.  The friends that gently teach you so many life lessons just by spending time with them.  The ones who are not afraid to tell the truth or ask the hard questions.  The ones who push you to be better, and encourage you to take chances.  The ones who remind you that sometimes you have to face your fears, and do the thing the scares you most.  The ones who watch your transformation and at the end, they are there, celebrating the person you have become, and the journey it took to get there.

Here's to the friends who come from unlikely places, and who show up when you least expect it.  These friends remind you that God knows the things that we need, and that His timing, though so different from our own, is always better in the end.  These are friends who are not part of your day to day life, and who you may not see or talk to for extended periods of time, but the reunions and the reconnecting are always so life-giving.  These are the friends with no expectations, just gratitude for those beautiful moments when your paths do cross.

Here's to the siblings friends.  These are your siblings who have, over the years become your best friends.  The ones who can push all of your buttons and make you so mad at times.  The ones you actually cannot bear to stay mad with because you miss talking to them and laughing with them and sharing life with them.  The ones who have your back no matter what, but are not afraid to share with you how they REALLY feel.  The ones who serve as a witness to your entire childhood, and if you are lucky, continue to do so once you transition into adulthood.  The ones who you swear know you better than yourself at times.  The ones who you cannot bear to live without.

Here's to the roommate friends, the ones who know all of your little pet peeves and habits.  The ones who you come home to at the end of the day, the ones who know your schedule, the ones you have too many inside jokes to count.  The ones who you were a little worried that living together would change the dynamic of your friendship, but at the end, you are sad to move out.  Here's to 8 minute abs, watching guilty pleasure TV shows, to sticky notes on the walls, woodpeckers pecking into the bathroom, snow days, late nights, and lots and lots of coffee. 


Here's to the childhood friends, the ones you could sit and reminisce for hours about the things you did years ago.  The friends who came to all of your birthday parties.  The friends with whom you have traditions or things that you always do.  The friends who didn't change, even through the tumultuous times of junior high and high school, where friends seemed to change by the hour.   These friends you don't have to talk to every day to know that they will be there when you ask.  Any time you do get to see or talk to them is always a bonus, and sleepovers are a double bonus.  There is a sense of security in the length and depths of these friendships, and you rest assured that if you have been friends for this long, it will take a lot to get rid of them :)

Embrace friendship and all that it has to offer.  My life is richer, deeper, and so much more enjoyable thanks to my friends.


Disclaimer: These photos and descriptions of friends do not reflect and include all of the friendships in my life.  To do so would require a much, much longer blog post.

The Broken Ones

One of my favorite things to do is walk along the beach and search for shells, interesting looking rocks, sand dollars, etc.  I was blessed in that this year I got to spend both Christmas and New Year's near the beach.  This is a beach I grew up going to, and I have vivid memories of building sandcastles, braving the cold Pacific ocean waters, carefully walking along the pier in order to not lose my flip-flop in the cracks.  I can remember one trip the beach was covered in sand dollars, and I wanted to pick up every single one of them.  It felt like I had hit the jackpot - the thing that I would carefully search for and be lucky if I found even one, and that day the collecting seemed limitless!  I remember bringing home an entire bucket-full - not sure exactly what I was going to do with them, but could not bear to pass up such a rare occasion.

There had been a storm along the coast a few weeks prior, so the beach had more ocean debris on it than usual, mostly rocks, but also a fair amount of shells.  On New Year's morning, I headed down to the beach, though my visions of a peaceful walk along the beach were somewhat interrupted by people gathering for the Polar Plunge that was going to be taking place at noon.  I walked slowly, as I visually searched the sand, looking for something to catch my eye.  There were many portions of shells, but I wanted something that was not broken, or at least as close to whole as possible.  As I turned over more and more shells to determine if they were worth picking up, this thought dawned upon me:
Why won't I keep a broken one?  Why have I decided that a chip, a crack, a hole, or other imperfection means it is not worth anything?

Sure, I could have said, Oh Alyssa, this is just shells on a beach.  Of course, you want to pick up the ones that are the most attractive, the most pretty to look at.  But something inside me was very unsettled.  

Do I view other things in the world in this same way?  Do I view myself this way?  Am I worried that God combs the beach, only finding the beautiful, perfect ones worthy of His love?

It started when I was small.  I would pick up broken sand dollars, and someone would tell me, That one is broken, Let's see if we can find one that isn't.  A seemingly harmless comment, and typically later I would be able to find one that was not broken, or at least close to it.  Some beach-combing endeavors ended with no loot, nothing worthy of being kept - nothing that I would want to look back on. 

But this time was different.  I was not comfortable picking up broken shells.  More than that, I realized that I struggle to believe when I am broken, when I am not whole and put-together, that I am not going to be picked up.  That no one is going to look twice at me, much less pick me up.  I might get lucky if there are no other pretty shells on the beach, and be chosen by fault, but if there is a whole sand dollar lying next to me, forget it.

Why is it that when other people are feeling down and out, broken and despised, I am so quick to lead them to the feet of Jesus, and remind them of His abundant and limitless love, grace, faithfulness, forgiveness.  Yet I so often do not recognize, believe, and live in those truths for myself.

Do I believe that Christ would choose me, just as I am, broken and lying in the sand, a bit battered from the journey of life?  

And even more than that,

Do I believe broken is beautiful?  That it is good enough?  Can I accept the inevitable brokenness within myself - my faults, my failures, my shortcomings, and still believe I am worth it?

So I had a new mission.  Find something that was broken that I thought was beautiful.  I thought it would be easy after the above epiphany, but it was a struggle.  Sure, there were plenty of broken things to choose from.  I kept trying to convince myself that they were good enough - that I could pick up that broken shell and treasure it.  

I finally found one.  I picked it up and held it in my hand.  I could see it's beauty, but it was also that it was clearly broken.  Incomplete.  Imperfect.  Lacking.  But I love it.  I saw myself in it.  And I wanted it.  I chose it.  I deemed it worthy of being kept and treasured and cherished.

I am worth it.  I am treasured.  I am cherished.