Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Friendship

Stories of Friendship: The one who taught me to be an adult

On Fridays, I’m resurrecting my series from the fall, Stories of Friendship. You can read them under the “friendship” category on the righthand side. If you’ve got one to share, e-mail a short post and a picture to lmbartelt (at) gmail (dot) com.

I can’t believe I did a series on friendship and haven’t yet introduced you to my friend Amanda.

Here we are on college graduation day. Isn't she lovely?

Here we are on college graduation day. Isn’t she lovely?

Amanda is the friend who taught me, showed me really, what it meant to be a grown-up.

Our friendship began freshman year of college through a friend of a friend, I think. (Isn’t it funny how I can’t always remember how the best of friendships begin? Maybe that’s how it is.) Amanda was bold and outspoken, friendly and sure of herself. That’s how I saw her anyway. And even at 18, she’d been a grown-up a long time already, helping out in her single-parent household.

I could always count on Amanda to tell it like it was, even if the truth hurt. She was the first person to tell me something along the lines of “let go and let God” when life was overwhelming and I didn’t think I could handle it. She was and is full of wisdom. She is funny, sarcastic and I’m smiling just thinking about her smile because it is so contagious.

As seniors, we lived together in an apartment, one of the more interesting buildings on campus. It was old and brick and I think there were only two apartments, maybe three in our building. Our kitchen window looked across to the apartment in the building next door where some other friends lived and we often danced and made faces across the way through our windows.

It was in this apartment that I learned what it meant to be a grown-up. When you live in the dorms you don’t have to cook for yourself or wash dishes. You have to do laundry, but you don’t have to keep a lot of space clean. I have hated housework long before I knew what it was, and I was not always held accountable in my house for helping out with things like dishes or cleaning the bathroom. (I struggle with these chores to this day.) But Amanda was different in that she helped take care of her household.

I remember one time when we lived in the dorms and a student said something about “that lady who cleans the bathrooms,” referring to the dorm’s cleaning lady, and Amanda lit into her because at her house, she was the lady who cleaned the bathroom. She had taken the time to get the cleaning lady’s name and get to know her. To Amanda, the woman wasn’t just a servant to us spoiled college students. She saw her as a person and identified with her.

Similarly, she often had to have a chat with me about the dishes. She was more likely to do them than I was and that became a problem when she was the one always doing the dishes. I knew almost nothing about cooking and she taught me some things. I think she was the first person to teach me about no-bake cookies.

I have fond memories of our year of living together. Like many of my college friendships, over the years the bond has been stretched. Amanda is another person I haven’t seen since my wedding, I think. I didn’t make it to hers because I was grossly pregnant with our son and travel was not a good idea.

Earlier this year, I needed to call her for some advice on planning a catering-style menu, and the first words out of her mouth when she picked up the phone made me chuckle and assured me that my friend Amanda was just like I remember her. (Not to say that she hasn’t changed because I think everyone changes with time.) It was a business-like call but it was so good to talk to her and receive encouragement for a hard task, and it made me want to find a way to see her, too. She lives closer to my hometown now than she ever did when I lived there and I still haven’t made it to her area of the state to see her!

When I think of strong women, I think of Amanda. She is the kind of fun and sassy friend with a depth of wisdom that everyone needs in their life. It’s a rare combination but one I treasure.

And did I mention that she’s super creative and began exploring creative writing at the same time I did? She is high on my list of people who will be first readers of my novel because I trust her opinion and know she’ll give it to me straight.

I’m happy to say that being roommates didn’t ruin our friendship. I think it strengthened it.

Stories of Friendship: The one who's been through it all

Last fall I started a Friday series about friendship. I’m resurrecting it for a few weeks to tell you about a few more friends I appreciate. If you’ve got a story of friendship you’d like to tell, I’m happy to post it! E-mail me at lmbartelt (at) gmail (dot) com. You can find all the Stories of Friendship under the “friendship” category on the right sidebar.

We met in junior high, though I can’t tell you the circumstances for certain. Maybe we had a class together, I don’t know. What I do know is that we bonded over some typical junior high drama–a boy and a breakup. We became friends even though I was envious of everything about her. She was outgoing and a little bit flirty, confident and beautiful. In junior high, those things stand out, especially to someone who feels none of those things. For many years, I felt like I lived in her shadow, but I was mostly okay with that.

Katrina

I dug this photo out of an old album. But this is how I see Katrina in my mind.

Being friends with Katrina was a gift from an early age. That our friendship survived the junior high and teenage years is practically a miracle, hormones and drama and all of that.

Partway through our high school years, I think we were juniors, she moved to another town, graduating from a different high school. We kept in touch by letter (yes, old school because the Internet was still brand-new and hardly anyone used it), telephone, even the occasional visit. I clearly remember the day we were talking about our college plans and discovered that one college was on both of our lists.

We visited together one weekend, riding to southern Indiana in a van driven by an admissions counselor with a handful of other prospective students. We had different experiences that weekend but both of us eventually decided to become Aces at the University of Evansville in Indiana. Going to college 7 hours from home was a frightening and thrilling prospect for me, the girl who almost never left home, and it was made less scary by knowing that I’d know at least one person on campus.

I believe it was Katrina who advised that we should not be roommates, and I  see now the wisdom in this. It would have ruined our friendship, for sure.

Maybe even more surprising than our friendship surviving the teenage years is that it survived the college years. Our years at UE were filled with major life stuff as we broke out of our previously set molds. I can’t speak for her entirely but I know I made decisions I regret during that time. Still, I always had a friend in Katrina.

But she was also the reason I made the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Katrina grew up in a church family. They were involved and she was always going to these lock-ins and retreats. I didn’t know much about this part of her life but I knew that it sounded kind of fun. When we got to college, I took a few baby steps toward faith. Katrina, at the invitation of her roommate, took a bigger leap and became involved in a Christian group of students on campus. I was not so brave or bold initially. But I trusted Katrina so I watched and waited.

And when drama caught up with me at college and I felt my world spinning, I stuck out my hand for balance and found Katrina and a new group of friends who were super weird about their beliefs but also super nice. They included me in their group, and even though I continued to struggle with envy of Katrina (a result of my deep insecurities), I was glad to belong. That  belonging led to a decision to follow Jesus and to be sure that I would not turn back, I asked Katrina to help me take the next steps that were harder than the first ones.

Partway through our college years, we had the chance to study in England for a semester. I use the word “study” loosely because we were 20-year-olds in England for an entire semester. We sat in classes and we had assignments and did homework but we also traveled a lot and tried new things. Having Katrina in England at the same time was another blessing even though we had our moments. I remember how much she and a few others friends hated Paris because it was so French. I think I was the only one of the group who had taken French in high school and had dreamed about Paris for years. I drove them nuts with my constant declarations: “Look! There’s the Eiffel Tower.” (FYI, you can see the Eiffel Tower from pretty much everywhere in Paris.)

After college, our paths took different turns again but our friendship was constant. We got real-life grown-up jobs. We kept in touch. We both found the men we would marry pretty much right under our noses. We had kids. We moved. We had crises of health and marriage and family.

Our communication is not constant and we haven’t seen each other in person in probably six years or more, but Katrina is the friend who has  been there through it all and is the person in my life who knows me the best. That’s weird to say about someone who isn’t your spouse, but she knows the childhood me and still loves me.

We chatted by phone recently, the first time in maybe a year. And it was like no time had passed even though she had another child in her house and so much had passed for both of us.

I recently learned something new about Katrina. When you’ve known a person for 25 years, you think maybe there’s nothing more to learn. Good thing I’m wrong about that. She posted on Facebook about her Myers-Briggs personality type (Google it if you don’t know what I mean) and I learned that my confident, beautiful, outgoing friend is an introvert. An introvert! I couldn’t believe it because I’m an introvert and I spent too many years believing there was something wrong with me and that everyone else was better than me and there was no possible way I could ever be like Katrina. (Not the right goal, just in case you’re wondering.)

So, it’s true. You can learn something new about someone you’ve known for two-thirds of your life. There was a time when Katrina and I were planning some 40th birthday madness in a few years, but I’m not sure I can wait that long. Though she is one of the few people I will willingly and gladly answer the phone for, I miss her and need to hug her neck and play with her kids. (Plus our sons–my only, her older one–need to meet. They sound like kindred spirits who will destroy something in the name of fun.)

She is my best friend. And maybe the first person outside of my family to tell me “I love you” and mean it.

Do you have a best friend? Or a friend you’ve known for decades? What’s your relationship like? And have you told them how much they  mean to you?