This week's book was that for me. Kayleen Schaefer's Text Me When You Get Home is an homage to female friendship, and I picked it up at just the right time. We are at the beginning of our final few months in Florida, a place where God has blessed me with the friendship of some incredible women, and preparing to move on to a place where I will start over and make new friends (ideally). Meanwhile, I continue to have the chance to touch base with other women who have hung in there with me during the long years of many moves through occasional phone calls, the rare face to face meeting, emails, FaceTime, and sporadic texting all while continuing to take care of all the other things we have on our plates.
As I read, I couldn't help but be grateful for the amazing friendships I've been a part of. And I also found myself encouraged to keep pursuing these friendships and not let them diminish. It is easy as a military spouse to let old friendships slip through your fingers like sand. We say, "It's not goodbye; it's only see you later!" but what we often mean is "If I see you again, that will be fantastic, but I don't really expect either of us to stay in contact." I told a friend several years ago that I never have expectations about who will maintain long distance relationships with me after we move. I always just wait and see how things pan out after a couple months. This helps me to keep from getting my heart hurt when I find the time stretching longer and longer between phone calls and text messages. It is the way the world turns--we are grown women who are busy, and in some seasons of life, we need friends who are physically with us, and I understand that.
But how grateful I am for the friend who texts out of the blue to say they were thinking of me. Or the friend from college who couldn't wait to tell me a piece of good news on the phone. Or the friend who makes plans to visit me before I've even left for the next base. How grateful I am for girl's weekends away (and for a husband and parents who make things like that happen). For sisters and moms (mine and the Man's) who choose not to take our relationship for granted but to pursue a consistent friendship with me that stays stable no matter how many others drift in and out of my life (or rather how many people's lives I drift in and out of). For a husband who understands that he is not supposed to meet my every emotional need and encourages me to get out of my introvert shell and spend time with people who will nourish my soul. For friends who are different from each other and different from me so that we all have the opportunity to learn and grow. For friends who purposefully choose to walk life with me even though it is at times inconvenient and uncomfortable (and overly full of rambunctious children). For friends who understand that when I tell them they are my sahabat I mean that they are a friend of my heart.
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| I'm only including this one really fantastic picture with my sisters so that the rest of you guys don't start a war over who I love most based on whose photo made it and whose didn't. Also, because this picture is fabulous. |
I'll admit that as we head to this next assignment, knowing that it will be shorter than usual, part of me has wanted to coast on old friendships and not put forth the effort to build new ones when we will be there for only a few months. Schaefer reminded me of something that I already knew but needed to hear again: you never know when you're going to meet a person who could be your new best friend. This doesn't mean the old ones are getting replaced, just that there are so many wonderful people out there in the world, and I don't want to miss out on the blessing of getting to know them just because there's another goodbye right around the corner.
As I finished the book yesterday morning, I found myself thinking about the friends I wanted to check in on, but I also found myself wondering if there were friends who didn't realize how much they meant to me
and what I could do to fix that. It doesn't take long. A phone call or a text message, a quick email when I have a moment or taking the time to go talk face to face if I can. There is not one of us who doesn't need to hear that we are loved, treasured, worth someone else's time and energy. And there is not one of us incapable of passing that message along to the people we love.
And it might be a message that arrives at just the right time.
Almost like a book showing up in my online library account just when I needed to read it.
