Best Friends - Part 2:

[Judging from the private responses to the previous post on friendship, I've apparently struck a nerve.  Here are more thoughts on friendship between adult women .... thoughts still not fully formed, still conclusion-less.  Would love to hear your feedback on this topic, especially if you have a different - or more fully developed - perspective!]

Turtle in a Social Whirl'd :

Once upon a time, a bright, curious, engaging little girl grew up to be a middle-aged woman who went to a retreat advertised as, well, a retreat: a time to get away, to be refreshed, to be quiet, to "let go of the need to have it all together". It was billed as being different from those other retreats, which were, well, actually conferences.

This middle-aged woman, mother of four, was looking forward to quiet. Refreshment. Letting go of perfection (or the striving for...). To being with like-minded women.

The venue was peaceful. The guest speaker was kind, and welcoming. The other women were genuine. And gregarious. And eager to hear each other's life stories. And exchange contact information. And refer to each other as “dear friend” on social media only hours after meeting for the first time ......

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I came to the retreat to actually retreat. I thought others had, too. I thought (silly me) that was the point.

I was wrong.

I didn't attend all the offered meetings, and workshops, and sing-around-the-campfires, and early-morning-yogas, and late-night-snacks. I wanted to. I just needed retreat more than I needed fifteen new best friends.

And so …. even though a few of the lovely women I met friended me immediately on social media, I soon noticed, after I went home (refreshed, I might add, despite feeling like a disappointment socially), that the “dear friend-ing” continued – nay, escalated – in earnest. Was there a prize? I began to wonder, for attaching yourself to the most new people? Did you get a discount at the next annual event if you got the most new followers? The most comments from previous attendees?

I still don't know. I slowly unfollowed most of my new “friends” as my feeling of fraudulence increased, since I wasn't actually in friendships with any of them.  There was no one-on-one, heart-to-heart, back-and-forth, outside of reading and occasionally commenting on social media posts. I prematurely decided that it was probably all just a facade, for all parties involved.

And then I saw a photo of several of them together. Together. In person! (One of them had been my roommate!!). The first thing I thought was not (God help me) “How lovely that they could all get together!”

Nope. The first thing I thought was - “I'm not there. I'm not with them. No one invited me. I'm not wanted.”

There it is. All the bright, curious, engaging little-girlness gives way to the ancient fear of not being wanted, lived out decades later, on a regular basis.

I confess that as I approach my fifth decade in life, I still occasionally wonder “How is this friendship stuff supposed to work, exactly?” What is it supposed to look like? Does everyone else have that One Person who texts them (or if they're really loved, calls!) whenever something good or bad happens, and who reciprocates in turn? Does everyone else have a friendship playbook except me? Did I miss a memo (or a facebook meme) somewhere?

In middle school, my physical coordination was rather behind the other kids', which, coupled with the fact that I'd been pushed ahead a grade in school, putting me even more behind coordination-wise, meant that I was usually chosen last for team sports.

Middle age felt just like that, today, when I saw that photo of the happy-without-me group of retreat women.

What's wrong with me now, I wondered? Being able to hit or kick the ball at the right time in the right way doesn't matter anymore, and I actually thought I was a pretty good friend. (More than one friend has told me just that, as it happens, so surely it's not arrogance to believe them?) 

 Maybe I'm just not that sort of friend, the kind you invite on a girls' road trip, or have over with your other friends, or pick up your phone to tell about the thing that just happened, or call to check up on when you haven't heard anything for awhile?

I don't know. I am in the dark. Playbook-less.

I have good friends (I thought) who tell me sometimes in the middle of our deep, intense, meaningful conversations that they can't talk to anyone else like this, about these kinds of things. So I apparently have some value as a friend. Sometimes. When it comes to being real about what really matters. But these friends do not tag me on their “best friend” posts. We don't take selfies together and commemorate our friendship in the public eye.

Maybe I'm not fun (or photogenic!) enough for those kind of friendships. (But just the other day I was with two friends laughing till we couldn't breathe or – a more immediate crisis – swallow the coffee in our mouths! Okay, granted, that would not have been photogenic!)

Or maybe I'm too quirky to want to hang out with too frequently, or too embarrassing to combine with other friends. Maybe I'm not a good mixer.

For whatever reason, I was not chosen, at that retreat, for anyone to get to know* in real life, beyond the artificially-structured time. In that small, intimate crowd of 30+ women, despite the fact that I enormously enjoyed getting to know some of them, sharing stories, talking about things that matter, somehow none of them “stuck” in a way that translated into friendship once the retreat had ended.

So I am left mystified.

Maybe if I gaze at that photo long enough, I'll find a clue ….
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*[It occurs to me as I type that phrase - “not chosen … for anyone to get to know” - that I also did not choose to get to know anyone at length once the retreat ended, either. I didn't attach myself to any of the apparently pre-formed groups there; I didn't pursue post-retreat closeness with anyone whose story I'd heard. So in a way, I participated in the not-choosing … by also not choosing. This is something for me to chew on. Something different, granted, from the left-out feeling that I'm not doing friendship “right” in general, in life, but still …. Perhaps there is more initiating that is my responsibility than I have previously acknowledged. And perhaps – there is just simply the fact that I prefer a slower pace than many today seem to …. and so I am literally left behind. I don't know. Do you?]

Best Friends

 Tomorrow is National Best Friends Day. I know this because a few times a year I hear about a cool “National” day (usually a day or two after the fact) and decide that I want to keep up on what the National Days are so that when something cool like “National Eat-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-in-Bed-Day” comes up, then I'll know in advance so we can celebrate it as a family, earning me those all-important Fun-Mom points that I'm always so short on ….

As an aside, there IS no “National Eat-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-in-Bed-Day” because at the time that I submitted the idea they were no longer accepting nominations for National Days. I was nominating it to be on my birthday, I think, along with a nomination for “National Random Acts of Kindness Day” to be held on Mother Teresa's birthday. Both were turned down, so at least I had no good reason to take that rejection personally.

Which is as good a segue as any, I suppose, for the topic of this post, which is related both to National Best Friends Day, and to rejection, and taking things personally.

As much as I abhor writing about (or reading about, for that matter) pain, and personal pain especially, and rejection, and anything that sounds even remotely self-pitying (because we all know that victimhood is practically the worst modern sin there is in the current era of self-sufficiency) …. every time I pick up, well, my laptop, to write anything in the past year or three, it always ends up a puddly pool of self-pity. Or at least it sounds that way to me. It's possible that I'm oversensitive to that particular nuance; I don't know.

But since that's apparently what's in me to come out, I've decided I might as well just run with it. Own it. Face up to the fact that evidently I am a self-pitying victim-y sort of person, at least right now. (And really – there is an awful lot to be self-pitying about in your 40s, I'm just saying*....)

The thing is – National Best Friends Day:   I don't have a Best Friend. Not the kind with capital letters. Not the kind you can confidently tag #BFF on a facebook post without worrying that she'll be surprised, or worse yet, in her head (or to her REAL BFF) be like “Wait, what?! She thinks we're Best Friends?!!! Oh NOOOO!!!”

This – not having a Best Friend – worries me a little. Or at least it makes me wonder if it should worry me. And maybe some days it worries me more than a little. (Please tell me I'm not the only one that has those “I'm probably the only one who [doesn't] ______!!” days....) I mean, in some ways I thought grown-ups were beyond Best Friends. That feels a little like grade school to me, and yet if I spend too much time on social media I'll inevitably run across posts (by adult friends – always, strangely, female) proclaiming just that: that So-and-So is their Best Friend. So maybe we haven't outgrown that?

Which brings me back to the question: Am I the only one without a Best Friend? How common IS this “Best Friend” phenomenon among adults?

I do have wonderful friends. I have friends who have known me since high school (and before!) and friends who I just met in the last couple of years, friends with whom I can talk theology and grammar and current events and literature and psychology and personal growth and child-rearing and gardening and cooking and pretty much everything under the sun. I have friends that I've cried with and friends that I've laughed-till-I've-cried with. Friends who walk with me, shop with me, drink coffee with me, eat with me, give me – or ask me for – advice. Friends who swap recipes with me, recommend books and CDs (and even loan them), send links to that awesome shirt she just got from Amazon or links to good movies or links to cool DIY projects or links to free therapy. Friends that I give to and friends that I receive from. Friends that in some seasons I feel very close to, and in other seasons we seem to drift apart. I've had friends that we could spend years without contact and pick up right where we left off, and friendships which ended painfully, and still bring pain today.

But when I think of a Best Friend (and this is, of course, always in capital letters), I think of having one friend who it would always be them that I'd call with good news or bad news or a stupid question about how to clean a dryer vent, and who would always call me for those things.

And I don't have one of those. Do you? Are we supposed to? Does not having one make me less of a woman? Is it proof that I'm not a good friend, or am undesirable Best Friend material somehow?

I'm not being facetious. I really want to know.

Someone fill me in? (But whatever you do, please, I beg of you, do NOT show this to your own Best Friend and laugh at me behind my back. Because that would really usher in the self-pity, and goodness knows we wouldn't want that!)

*and YES I know about gratitude and how important it is and how healing and magical it is.  Yes.  I know.  And guess what?  I am just complex enough to be a gratitude-freak AND a self-pitying victim-y sort of person.  Not that I'm angling for a trophy in complexity.  Just saying.

mirror, mirror . . .

I have lived in this skin for 47 years, three months, three days, and an uncertain number of hours.

I have been a wife for 23 of those years.

A mother for 19 years and counting.

I participate in a reading group for women who are fans of C. S. Lewis' writing.

I lead a small group of women in weekly study of the Bible.

I read for pleasure: a mix of relational psychology, classic literature, theology, brain science, and contemporary fiction.

I have structured and facilitated my children's home education for the last 13 years.

I have taught (and am teaching) my children the life skills they will need to be independent.

I cook.

I launder.

I [occasionally] clean.

I put flowers on the table, in season and out.

I meet friends for coffee and mutual encouragement.

I have been (and occasionally still am) a student.  A traveler.  A teacher.  A potter.  A blogger.   An instagramer.  A writer of letters. A photographer. A thinker. A hand-letterer.  A student of Scripture.

I crochet.

I [sporadically] garden.

But mostly these days, it seems, I question my identity. I am often among those who are, in one way or another, to greater or lesser degrees, different from me. It unsettles me, depriving me of the "me, too" affirmation I've come to depend on from others.  Perhaps it's outgrown me, when I should have outgrown it.

"Am I enough?"  "Do I pass muster?"  These are questions of a child, a teenager, an emerging young adult.  I am 47 years old! Surely I ought to have outgrown such insecurities, such hankerings after approval, affirmation, and gold stars.

Impatiently, I toss truisms toward my angst, defaulting to theoretical safety: “You are God's. What else matters?”

But it does. Surely He made me for some purpose, to some end. Something more than keeping six people clothed and fed?  [I blush to realize that it might be the lack of accolades for that particular job, rather than the job itself, that doesn't satisfy...]  My peers are going back to school and careers, starting businesses, moving on. Leaving me behind. It used to be we were all in the throes of motherhood together, laundry and supper our most urgent goals. I was happy there, in a way, but now I look up and find they've all left for brave new midlife horizons.

Now I chafe. I compare. I lie on my bed and cry into the linen-covered wool quilt I made by hand ("See?!"  I encourage myself - "you've accomplished this!"). I chastise myself for wallowing: “Go outside and clean out your flowerbeds! Do something!!” I exhort myself compassionlessly.

Why must I forever seem to be scrambling to keep up?!

I pick myself up off of my bed. Pop the rousing Georgian Voices album from my college days into the stereo and turn the volume high. Fold laundry and put supper in the oven.

And then I get out my laptop and begin to type.....

…..for writing is cheap therapy, reliable, and maybe somewhere out there is a reader who, seeing these words, will say “me, too!” and take comfort that they are not alone.

And we will join hands and march brave into the wilderness . . . .

journey to Bethlehem

[first published December 25, 2014; updated today]


It all started quite simply, well over a decade ago when Sugar was a toddler, and we used the figures of our nativity scene to act out the Bible story for her.  As Mary & Joseph made their long trip to Bethlehem, they stopped along the way to eat.  (We "stopped" with them, sharing raisins to ensure Sugar's rapt attention).

Each year since then, it's gotten a little more elaborate, until it has blossomed into an annual theatrical production - at least for mealtimes.

So every year now the children insist that we spend the day before Christmas "journeying" to Bethlehem.  I play "Mary," my Farmer plays "Joseph," and the children play our nieces and nephew, traveling in the same caravan en route to our ancestral city of Bethlehem, for the census.  Now that Sugar is nearly 17, however, she's more suited to play Mary than I am!  Time for a switch, maybe, and I can be an anonymous middle-aged aunty ....

The details vary from year to year, but most aspects of the journey are fairly constant:

We spread the blanket on the floor and lay out the food in the center.  We sit around the food in a circle, sharing from the common bowls (handmade pottery, or wood, if possible).  Sometimes Joseph (or, more rarely, Mary, who has also been known to fake pregnancy with a pillow) wears a plaid bathrobe to really get into character.  Conveniently, the children all have biblical names and it's only "Mommy" and "Daddy" which are discarded in favor of stage names.

Another part of our tradition is watching The Nativity Story movie throughout the day - just up until the point when Mary and Joseph reach Bethlehem, before they are shown to the stable.  Then Christmas Day, we finish the rest of it.  It's an excellent movie which I can't recommend enough, but in the early years we did mute and/or fast forward through the sections of it that would have overwhelmed our children (scenes with Herod's soldiers rampaging through Bethlehem to kill the baby boys, for instance; there is also a hanging that Mary & Joseph pass, and the taxation scene gets a little intense).  Watch with caution.  Another favorite, more child-friendly, is the gorgeous clay-mation The First Christmas.

As the years have passed, our "simple traveling peasant" fare has gotten a bit more substantial as the children have gotten larger and hungrier.  From the initial almonds, raisins, and bread, the menu has grown quite a bit.  I offer it here, in case anyone else wants a spark of an idea to ignite their own tradition.


Journey Menus
breakfast:  bread, curds (cottage cheese), dried or preserved fruit, milk, almonds.

lunch:  fish (tilapia or swai are inexpensive, and are tasty baked simply with a pat of butter), barley loaves, honey yogurt, olives, pistachios and grapes.

supper:  lentil stew, tortillas, plain yogurt, goat cheese [I also made risotto one year, since growing children cannot live on tortillas alone, and not everyone at this house had developed a taste for lentil stew yet.  Let's just call it poetic license, shall we?]


There are many possibilities for substitutions, and our menus vary a bit from year to year.  Dried fruits that could have come from that region of the world include raisins, dates*, apricots, and figs.  Fresh fruits include grapes and pomegranates.  Nuts could be almonds, hazelnuts, or pistachios.  Dairy products of all kinds would have been common.  Breads were made from barley or wheat, and other everyday foods might have included lentils or split peas, olives, fish, onions, garlic.  In recent years my girls have taken to straining greek yogurt through a cheesecloth to make a soft, fresh 'cheese'.  They sprinkle it with herbs and it looks quite authentic, to our eyes!  Come up with something else?  I'd love to hear about it!

Christmas Day Feast

After a day of eating "simple" foods in recognition of the difficulties of Mary and Joseph's journey, we pull out all the stops for Christmas day!  Breakfast is supplied in the stockings - granola bars, juice boxes, craisins, (and yes, probably some candy too!) - and lunch is normal fare, or journey leftovers.  [Maybe in another few years I'll manage to pull off the 'shebang' of my imagination:  cinnamon rolls for breakfast!  But for now I've got all I can handle with the 'journey'....]

For our supper we feast with a Moroccan dish called Lamb Tagine with Dates (adapted from Betty Crocker's New International Cookbook).  We've made this dish with lamb, beef, chicken, and venison, and it's always delicious.  I've followed the directions to the letter, from browning the meat to adding the dates in at the end, and I've thrown it all into a crockpot at the same time, and it's still always a hit.  I think this recipe is one of those rare ones that you just can't mess up.  Here's the all-at-the-same-time version:

Put into a crockpot:

3 lbs meat (lamb, venison, beef, or chicken all work just fine)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. saffron
2 cups water
1 T honey
1 cup pitted dates*, chopped (don't use your yummy Nuts.com varieties here; deglet noors will do nicely)

Cook on high 4-6 hours, or on low 8-10 hours.  Or whatever.  Crockpots are wonderfully flexible.  This year I put the meat in frozen around 11 a.m. and am hoping it will be done (on high) by 5pm. (I'll let you know if it's not!)

Serve with naan and millet or amaranth if you're having an energetic year.  If not (like me, most years) then plain rice and a vegetable will do fine.  I have some olives left over from yesterday that I'll put out, and we'll have pomegranates and clementines and dates* (the yummy ones!) for dessert, along with some completely inauthentic Christmas cookies that my industrious children made with my mother one lovely day while I was out.

We've also tried lamb a year or two, with excellent results.  This meat is not only authentic, but also beautifully symbolic, since Jesus is the Lamb of God, sacrificed to take away our sins.  It's also a costlier meat, which reminds us of how costly it was for Jesus, who, "being in very nature God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness" to give up His place in heaven in order to come to earth. (Philippians 2:6-7)

Merry Christmas, & may God bless us, every one!


* a word on dates:  Your health food store may have medjools (which are a lot tastier than the deglet noor variety usually sold for baking), and other varieties if you're lucky.  Otherwise, Nuts.com is a reliable and cost-effective choice for barhi, jumbo medjool, khadrawy, and halawi varieties.  They also have great customer service and a delightful sense of fun.

harried and helpless

We hear a lot about depression in the media.  If you've never suffered from it (20% do in our country*), you may wonder what the big deal is.  Happiness is a choice, right?  Why not just choose happiness??

I recently asked about depression on facebook, and a courageous friend of mine spoke up about her own experience with depression, with a lack of support from a church family, and with do-able suggestions on how we can be a better support to those whose burdens are too heavy for them to bear. 

Her story touched me.  Whether you have suffered from depression, misunderstood it, or just want to know how to help, I think her words will light the way.  Here is what she says:

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Speaking from personal experience, if you see someone who is battling mental illness & depression and they "seem to be bright/happy", care enough to reach out below the surface.

There are times that I give in to the shame and guilt of not having a "good" outlook to make my journey easier for those around me (the ones praying & believing for healing), that I put on a mask and give an Oscar-winning show, all the while, just barely under the surface, I am crying, my heart is breaking, bleeding and slowly dying.

Again just speaking from my own personal experience, I stopped going to church as I would leave every time so beaten down it took weeks for the resulting spiral to slow down. Each time left me farther from God, frustrated, alone, afraid to talk to anyone or let anyone get near me. The pain was so severe. My relationship with God has been better on my own with him. It grieves my spirit that we the church (myself included) can't get this right and love like Jesus did, accept like Jesus did.

We don't need someone to be judging us - we already judge ourselves far worse than you could judge us. We need to be accepted & loved just the way we are - THAT is something we can't or won't do for ourselves. If you haven't gone through this personally, you don't know the depths of darkness, self hate, insecurity, helplessness, hopelessness, pain, loneliness - we aren't going to reach out for fear of being judged & hurt.

You don't need to worry about having the "right" words. Just knowing someone cares enough to reach out means more than you will ever know, when someone is willing just to spend time, listen if we want to talk. More than likely we may not want to talk right away. That's okay - talk about your life, things you may struggle with (that will help us feel like you might be human also ).

If talking freaks you out, we understand that too. There are other things you can do that don't require conversation:  Send a card, make a meal or snack to send us. Shovel snow, see if there is something else we need help with. Send or tag us on funny stories, pictures or videos. Find things we have in common, have a game night, movie night, mini golf, whatever.

Spending time helps us feel like maybe we are worth something, maybe someone won't judge us, maybe someone would actually notice if we weren't here (Notice, but would that be a relief that you don't need to do stuff with/for us anymore? Would anyone have taken the time to get to know us on a deep enough level that someone would actually miss us for longer than the funeral? . . . These are the things that keep me up at night.)

There is so much more churches could do to help walk alongside those who are struggling. The church as a whole I think does better with illnesses that have a fairly clear path/time frame. Chronic illness - mental and physical - the church needs and MUST do better. Those with chronic illness mental or physical (for me it's both physical & mental) suffer mainly alone in silence. It's hard for people to understand something that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with no clear treatment timeline.

If that overwhelms them how do you think it feels for us?

All that to say, sometimes I make the choie to put on the "happy face mask" and then the acting and lies start: "I'm doing good," "I feel great," etc. It might look like I'm happy & doing good, but it's not even skin deep.

Living that life is exhausting, but helps block some of the pain/judgment from those around us, because that takes a lot out of us. It's painful to watch others accept who we are pretending to be, instead of who we really are, so we opt to not attend social events.

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Many of you will probably attend a church tomorrow.

For every 100 people in your church, 20 of them are likely to be currently suffering from some form of anxiety or depression, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

If there are 20 people in your small group, or in your Sunday School class, it is statistically likely that 4 of them are suffering with sadness and fear beyond their ability to manage.

                        How do you perceive their suffering? 

                        How do you act in the face of their pain? 

                        How can you help? (How might you harm?)

"When Jesus saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Matthew 9:36

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*Statistics from the ADAA website:

~ Major Depressive Disorder: about 6.7% of the U.S. population age 18 and older suffer in a given year.

~ Persistent Depressive Disorder:  approx. 1.5% of the population suffer

~ Seasonal Affective Disorder: 6.8% of the U.S. population suffer

~ Generalized Anxiety Disorder: 3.1% of the U.S. population suffer

~ Panic Disorder: 2.7% of the U.S. population suffer