Hi, would you like to be friends?
I’m one of those people who observes from across the room first. I watch how you interact with your roommate’s childhood friend in visiting for the weekend, how you talk to your mom on the phone when you’re upset. Not to be creepy, but before it’s hard to me to be vulnerable with new people, and I want to be sure you’re someone I’d connect with before making the effort. And it turns out I’m pretty good at observing. I’ve seen your good and bad. Like that time when you thought everyone forgot to invite you to a get together, you felt incredibly alienated and rejected by your newly realized fake friends, but they just didn’t realize you were back from out of town—I get that. I’ve also seen how you drive in the car with the windows down on your way to the beach, smile curving up every part of your face as you belt the words along to Ed on the stereo. I feel privileged to see those highs shared between you and God and the moment. And because I know you’re figuring out your identity, what it means to be authentically, unabashedly you, I will just say I’ve seen those other times more brilliantly beautiful and more deep dark that I won’t describe here. I recognize the joy and the shame and the tangles between. I’ll just say that I appreciate them, and do not extend a note of judgment.
So given that I’ve seen chiaroscuro of your soul, I would like to invite you on an adventure. We both don’t have it all together yet, but I see that longing in your eyes to feel connected to another who knows you inside out. We’ll share all our victories and darkest moments, and through everything I promise not to feel ashamed of you or abandon this friendship. We’re in it till the end, no matter the outcome or what it looks like. Will you go out into the world, and in between our souls, with me, together? I think we have potential to be the closest and truest of friends.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to extend this invitation. Sometimes I have the tendency to observe and sit on my hands, waiting and watching for the opportune moment to act. I had all the information I needed, knew I wanted to take this leap many moons ago. There were times where I saw you alone with your thoughts swirling around like a raincloud above and I knew you needed me as a friend. When I stayed in the far side of the room just looking on, too much time passed. I didn’t come up to you and introduce myself. I have no excuse for the feelings of shame and inferiority you’ve felt per my inaction. Just know that I wanted to be here sooner, but like you, maybe I didn’t know how to start.
Let me bow low, roll out the carpet, escort you in. You’ve had a hard time out there in the cold, and I have a big fireplace, deep cozy chairs, and your favorite books are mine, too. You’ll need this haven on your journey through crossroads. Take a seat, nestle inside, I’m here to listen now. This will take us to exotic, far-off islands and the deepest, most unfathomable depths within ourselves. I’m ready if you are. But you have to accept my invitation first. Thank you for considering my proposition after all this time, I understand if it’ll take a bit for you to decide. It would be like that for me, too. I’m done trying to explain myself, and leave it in your hands. Just know that as friends, there would be none truer, and our adventures would be nothing short of spectacular. I love you.
*Written May 2018, from a dark place where my greatest enemy and source self-loathing was myself. I was in a pretty dark place.
tadpole 