Honest friendships are the best friendships.
I feel like every situation in life is a scene out of my favorite movies. Of all of the campy classics that came out of the 90s, one of my favorites remains Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, starring Christina Applegate.
As an adult, I have a hard time reconciling how the mom could abandoned her kids to take a summer trip to Australia, but that's another post for another day.
The Cliffs Notes: Swell (later Sue Ellen) and her fellow teenage brother Kenny find themselves in a pickle when the babysitter their mother hired suddenly drops dead. Not wanting their mom to come home and ruin their summer of freedom, they do what all Good Samaritans do - they drop the old lady's body at the funeral home with a note. Unfortunately, Mrs. Sturak was holding onto the grocery money for the summer. So if Swell, Kenny, and the other three kids are going to survive until their mother returns, Swell has to become a working woman. What better solution than to come up with a phony resume and work your way into a high-paying executive job in the quasi-fashion industry? Along the way, let's learn about petty cash embezzlement, navigating success with backstabbing coworkers, and relying on friends who can get you out of any pickle. Bodacious Sculptures in Ice, indeed.
Of all the life lessons I took away from this fine feature film, I realized that women don't always have it all together. We're imperfect creatures. And that's OK! Just fake it until you make it, girls. No idea how to do a QED report? Just shout "I'm right on top of that Rose!"for everyone to hear. But what happens in Hollywood doesn't always correlate to real life.
For many of us, it really is relying on friends to prop us up when we're feeling less than fabulous. To let a friend know your vulnerabilities is a huge mark of trust.
Many don't know this about me, but I deal with severe anxiety on a daily basis. If I walk into any social situation and people stop talking, my ears aren't just burning. They're engulfed in flames! While I'm smiling and possibly charming on the outside, I'm over-analyzing why you didn't laugh at my joke. I wonder if you think I'm an idiot. I worry I have something stuck in my teeth. I have already come up with a thousand reasons why you hate me.
Welcome to anxiety!
Even if I've known you for years, sometimes I clam up and can't stop the swirling spin cycle of self-doubt and fear. Many would view this as standoffish and rude, and if I've ever made you feel that way, my sincerest apologies. Without thinking, I often overshare and get myself into embarrassing situations. Anxiety is so much fun.
As Lysa Terkeurst recently put it, "We are imperfect because we are unfinished." (Side note, her new book It's Not Supposed to Be This Way might be one of the best I've ever read. Visit her at: lysaterkeurst.com).
I have a deep-rooted fear of letting people into my struggle and thus, I have trouble letting people into my life. We all fear being cleaved from the herd, and for years, my nomadic existence made that fear nonexistent. People can't hurt you if you have no people! Pretty genius, if you ask me.
In college, I found two of the most adorable gals in all of the land. Kristi, Becky, and I are coming up on a milestone this month. As of August 15 (give or take a week), we will have known each other for 20 years. 20 years?!?!?! Sweet heavens that's insane.
Kristi (along with my second parents Richard and Carol) broke my heart a few years ago by moving back to Texas. We keep in touch via FaceTime (if I'm wearing pants) and text messages throughout the week. Her dad likes to drunk dial me when he's had too much tequila. Her mom ranks in the top three of my favorite people on earth.
Luckily, Becky lives about an hour away, but with two active little boys, our visits aren't as frequent as they should be. I've never met anyone as put-together as Becky. She somehow juggles two boys, Cub Scouts, being a wife, and still puts in 40-hour work week. She shares my passion for ceramic Christmas trees and her laugh is something I crave to hear whenever we're together.
One of the things that unites our friendship so cohesively has to be honesty. I can tell these women anything. I will be judged, but I tell them anyway. And frankly, there's something about being judged by a friend that feels almost comforting. Good or bad, I know they'll tell me how they feel about a situation in a considerate, albeit honest way.
We know each other on a level I know very few people. I know Becky loves anything with a cow print and if stranded on a desert island, she'd die without Mexican food and books. Kristi's favorite expression if I'm complaining is "Would you like me to stomp on your toe to make you feel better?" That and her gentle emphatic reminder, "THIS IS A NO WHINE ZONE."
Both of them know my brain is a burlap sack of feral cats on a good day and love me nonetheless. But neither are afraid to give me a reality check every once in a while. Honest friendships are the best friendships.
Above all else, I admire both of these women for their strength of character. They truly don't care what you think of them. Love them or hate them, they're still going to be themselves, which seems in the grand scheme of things a very small thing. For someone with anxiety, that's huge and something I aspire to achieve someday.
Kristi and I had a brief chat this morning on her way to work and we dished about lives in the last week. Over the weekend, Kristi embarked on her favorite activity - camping. To say Kristi will be fine in the upcoming zombie apocalypse is an understatement. She'll thrive. I would rather drag my eyelids over two miles of broken glass than spend a day without air conditioning, so I'm hoping I get eaten in the first 15 minutes of an outbreak.
One of Kristi's Texan friends had texted her about something, and when she told me about it, I laughed incessantly. This friend doesn't know Kristi. Kristi is not the proverbial ogre with layers. First, she hates onions, but secondly, Kristi is one of the most brutally honest and blunt people walking the Earth. Kristi will let you know quickly what she likes and you'll never make the mistake of doing something she detests. She'll let you know in a very memorable way. There's a lot of joy in a friendship such as our's. We never have to guess what the other is thinking, we just say it. We're not Sue Ellen in our power suits pretending to be on top of things. We're real women with real issues, and that's totally fine.
In the last two years of putting down roots, I've begun to surround myself with people who will love the entirety of me, not just the "I'm Right on Top of That Rose!" facade. But those numbers are still few. I'm a heavily guarded fortress of self-doubt. The progress is often impeded by my inability to trust others. I still my keep my safety chain on the door. Sure, I'll let you peek in, but that's about as far as our relationship will go.
So please be patient with me. I am imperfect because I am unfinished.
Thanks for reading!
~Christy
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