Recently I was confronted with a tale of familiarity. A friend with an opportunity to re-kindle a boomerang love, but to do so would bring a long distance relationship which leaves a lot of unknowns to think through and to feel through. And in my attempt to encourage her, i revisited my own love story with my husband of 14 years, and how our Chapter 1 started 800 miles apart from one another.
While a long distance relationship comes with many compromises, it allows for other perspectives to develop and enrich overtime. One of the key significant qualities of my marriage now, and the relationship journey that my husband I were were on before marriage, is that the distance cried out for something to fill in that space. And what else can you pour into a gap so large as 800 miles, other than words. Time to speak yourself forward into another, time to receive another back to you; to siphon it down and distill into a pure form of humanity, of connection. Time to reflect on what you learn, decide how you feel about it. Time to learn about them slowly, over days and months and years, time to dive into the depths of who they are (and who you are too) because that’s all you really get to do. Share words over the phone, over a text, an email, hand written in letters. Words fill the space, and the words represent threads in a tapestry of the formation of your relationship together. And over that time and that exploration of self and love, you develop the bedrock of a safe relationship – friendship. And that component, the friendship that was created and sustained over that period is what has carried us forward all of these years.
In our conversation, she had written off this possibility because on the surface, it doesn’t meet her idea of the makings of a successful relationship. She thinks she is too needy day to day to be able to sustain satisfaction with something that offers a different version than what she imagines. In truth, many of the recent relationships she’s “tried on” have all been very traditionally set up. Local connection, date nights, figuring each other out, trying to meld family dynamics, etc. And for whatever the reasons, they haven’t lasted. And this is how it goes when you are searching for the right partner. But I want to encourage her to look beyond the make up of what she knows, what she has tried before, and to be open to the idea that life can surprise and delight her in ways she couldn’t anticipate. Ways that don’t necessarily follow the same rules of engagement as logic or reason or what has been familiar so far.
in reality, this friend stands firm in her independence and self assurance. She already knows how to navigate life with herself and for herself because she does so every day. Her interpretation of her “neediness” is simply fear of the unknown, and fear of loneliness. Which is normal, which is okay to feel. There are times where loneliness can act as a strong motivator and provider of affirmation. Yes! this is worth those feelings. This means that something is bigger than me, bigger than what I alone can control. And I think when we open ourselves up to the possibilities of what is bigger and out of our control, we invite in the incredible magic of life. We invite the impossibility of chance. And when you get a SECOND chance to revisit a love you had long ago; a love that felt very real and whole and safe and right even then, then you should lean into the unknown. Take the path less traveled this time. Let the friendship develop at this new pace, and allow the space of physical distance to be filled with the tentative tenderness and uncertainty of a tiny sprout bursting out of the earth. The seed, which did not know when it would meet the surface, or that there was even a surface there at all, but pushed upward anyway, chasing the warmth of the sun it could not see yet, because it knew no other way to be.
The Wayfaring Friend 