Walking in a friendship wonderland

Hello you luscious head of hair.

I love my family dearly-- both nuclear and extended-- but I know that this mutual affection is a privilege. This is not to say that my family doesn't enjoy our own unique brand of pains, triggers and dysfunctions. We definitely do. And lots of them. But I believe we also all genuinely try our best (most of the time) to love each other with compassion and kindness-- it is not always easy, but everyone is more of less on board with the effort to be good to each other.  And so the time I spend with family during the holidays is, for me, something that I genuinely look forward to each year.

However, lots of people experience the holiday season as a period that they have to "get through" or endure, and I truly get it and sympathize. Lots of people have challenging relationships with some/all of their family members, and the holidays can be a difficult time of year to navigate. The popular cultural tropes surrounding christmas are littered with unattainable family bliss, hyperbolic expressions of love and unrealistically festive personal growth and reconciliation. It's enough to make to make a gal crush a candy cane or two in frustration...

Family-- by virtue of the early and intimate influence in our lives-- is an incredibly powerful force whether we like it or not, and we will have lots of opportunity over the holidays to marinate in all of the ways we are helped and hindered by these relationships. But before settling in to the cranberry-scented, family-forward height of the holiday festivities, many of us will also be enjoying the jolly build up to the holidays with our friends.  This is not something we typically focus on this time of year (or any time during the year for that matter...), but I would like to take the time this week to acknowledge and celebrate our "chosen families" as we dive into this holiday season. 

I recently read this quote from poet David Whyte that for me captures a bit of the important role that friendship plays in our lives:

“The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.

But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self; the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

There are lots of ways we come into each others' lives and influence our meandering paths through the sonder, and I have been thinking a lot this year about what it means to be a good friend, how to show up for other people, what it looks like to make new friends as an adult, and the different ways one can be a friend to another. There is a time, place and context for any relationship between two people, and friendships can come and go. But I have been enjoying the ebb and flow of wonderful people in my life lately-- the relationships that have flourished, the ones that are lying fallow, and everything in between-- all of these relationships are an intimate part of who I am right now as a person, and while I have been contemplating how to be a better friend, I have also enjoyed taking some time this month to think about and appreciate the wide array of beautiful people who-- in small and big ways-- are on this life journey with me.    

So while going about your festive lives today-- amid the gingerbread houses and gift lists and general holiday chaos--- I invite you to pause and take a few minutes to send some loving vibes to the friends in your life: the people who have joined you on your journey-- some for now, some for ever-- and with whom you have chosen to share a part of your personal history together.    

But wait! Is all this gooey talk of friendship a bit too emo for your sunny Sunday morning?  Then please enjoy this article about the secret to enjoying a long winter

Still too much realness?  Then check out this video of a corrupted swimming race (and an incredibly amused witness to said swimming race).

From one witnessed person to another, I am glad that we can appreciate our chosen family together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have a friend-filled week!

Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus