It’s hard to believe that there was once no space for the very thing that makes me full. It didn’t exist between Greek Goddesses, they only had vices. The 11th century exemplars were David and Jonathan, and Shakespeare had the audacity to show females as friends- but only as a social critique on Elizabethan England, as Chute observed about the 16th century in a letter:
“To Europeans, England was known as a “paradise for women”; foreigners were startled by the freedom they took as their right. It is particularly curious that women went into taverns… accompanied by other women (40).”
Slowly, things have changed – Emily Rapp said:
“Friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they are ancillary, ‘bonus’ relationships to the truly important ones.”
They are still, too often, discussed like so- as if friendship only prepares you for the relationship that matters. But not always. Not here.
As my eyelashes untangle, the sunlight makes the curtains glow and I see a hazy merlot hue smeared just beyond. A warm body curls up onto mine. We’ve never had the same blood nor church bells chiming nor an official DTR. We are somewhere between family, for better and for worse, and just sit still and hold my hand.
“Today,” a sleepy breath comes out of her mouth.
“What are we going to do today?” I squeal. The warm body pops up, her long blonde curls messy behind her shoulders.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, and plopped back down on her pillow. We lay there for a few minutes, studying each other’s heartbeats.
Her alarm beeps, the least preferred sound on the most perfect day. I grip her biceps tightly and create ripples in the mattress. “You’re getting married!”
Facebook reports that we have 298 friends in common. We were in the same room at least one hundred times during our first three years at Carolina, yet, to my regret, we never collided. It wasn’t until we were in the same wedding and were the only ones with the same priorities, that is, Carolina basketball, that we became friends. We were seniors and since our stars crossed, you’ve been a giver. A giver of everything- revealing yourself, your thoughts, and your life. Sharing your family, your path at Ayr Mount, and your embarrassing dance moves. And I am committed to rejecting the fringe and fraught that comes from dead thoughts of “she loves me, she loves me not”. I fight with evidences of grace because ever since then, our friendship, desires, prayers, and memories listlessly collide. And through the test of time, some friends will fade, and I’ll be left with the positive influencers. And I know you will always be one of them, until death do us part.
Sometimes you need a friend that digs their knees into the warn-down carpet next to yours and cries out. One who is like a Carolinian summer and lingers a little longer because she never wants to leave. Or one that trades in sleep for a 12 hour drive through the night to celebrate life in both the Bull City and the City of Brotherly Love. One who yells “LaLa Land” and “Stone Cold” at the top of her lungs in her favorite cowboy boots that make the black pavement shine. One who lets you sleep in her bed because it’s the closest thing to a cloud and because you need a place to let your fears drip down your face. One who hums “Magnolia” as she walks around doll house mansions and questions how we will ever fully enjoy. Or one who plots making our duo a trio with our favorite author. One who makes glitter styrofoam pumpkins so iconic they could be featured in Cosmopolitan. One who reveres red wine as a deal breaker and sits with you under sycamores. One who laughs so hard she gasps to fill her lungs and drools at the mouth. One who gets stuck with you in invisible inner tubes and floats in joy. One who lets you be a little kid- who giggles and frowns and doubts everything and skips away, content. One who wanders for miles through the green world and carries you home on your heavy days. One who stays firm as a brick wall but loves you back like a flat coat retriever. One who wouldn’t care if anything was missing as long as she had her groom and she got to be his bride.
This friendship is a harmonized hymn. In it I get all in one, a posey, and it has become my image of freedom. Together, we produce something that glorifies God and displays his image here. Where there was nothingness there is now good, life and newness.
And it’s not unique to me, your contagious joy and freedom. You live and it bursts from you like a diadem and people can’t hide from its impact. And in three years its strength has built up, like molten lava that effervesces up from the core, through the mantle, out of the Earth’s crust, and into the atmosphere. And your layers have flexed and healed and shot out a fruit of pure freedom.
Yet, as quick as the caramel leaves that come out after one crisp Autumn night, your freedom shifted. Suddenly, it was not just freedom, but a fearlessness.
In Gattaca, Vincent is a meek, mocked, weak child compared to his genetically perfect brother Anton. Vincent becomes an outcast in his family and society and has never had the ability to win anything. To settle a dispute, the brothers swim out from the shore at midnight – the first one to head back to safety loses.
Anton: “Vincent! Vincent! Where’s the shore? We’re too far out.”
Vincent: “You want to quit?”
Anton: “We’re too far out!”
Vincent: “You want to quit?”
Anton: No!”
After pushing their bodies forward a few more yards towards an unseeable destination, Anton yells: “Vincent! How are you doing this? Vincent, how have you done any of this? We have to go back.”
Vincent: “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it: I never saved anything for the swim back.
This is what your fearlessness looks like – You don’t save anything for the swim back. You’ve felt the barriers before, just like Vincent- the Should I really do this?; What is he thinking?; and but this is too risky. There are fears of making the wrong decision, fears of getting into the depths of who you are, fears of laying down who you are, fears of being misjudged or misspeaking. Still; your fearlessness has been growing strong and now blossoms through your honesty and your sorries and your kindness.
You take risks- speaking into things you’ve never experienced because you’re sure of truth and pursue it without flickering your eyes around a room in fear of judgment. And our conversations have turned away from my beloved pro-con charts that I so truly trust to lead me to security and instead have turned towards a serious trust in truth that you have everything in Christ. And you count all else as a loss in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing him. And you are so sure of your security in Christ that it enables you to live as this free, and fearless light.
This new depth to freedom – your fearlessness – shot up like a fresh chute of bamboo about two years ago. And two years ago, Matt started revealing himself. Matt in Paige and Paige in Matt has brought out a new layer on them, together. Together, you produce something that glorifies God and displays his image here. Where there was nothingness, there is now good, life, and newness.
Matt was my friend’s room leader with a goofy smile who wore jumpsuits and swung from mini vans. He was a boy who dared to go, and a man who is okay to say he doesn’t know. He’s a real friend to 28,928 and carries a treasure in his book bag. He sits across from me at Chuy’s and digs through nachos while digging into the purpose behind all of my yesses. He swooned over my curly haired soul mate and he promised to be hers.
And just like Vincent, I’m sure you will have moments of seeing the waters rising- seeing you are just humans, seeing you are physically two, seeing you are highways and oceans away from porcelain pieces of your heart that you want to gather in a woven basket. And you may even see this good, life, and newness veer backwards towards chaos. But still, don’t save anything for the swim back. You can swim impossibly far, and yet you will only make it from His pinky to His thumb. And when you think you are tired or sinking, you are only laying down to rest in the lines of His palm. And when you think you are in the chaos and darkness, He carries you in His hand.