Last weekend, I spent the weekend in Cleveland with my best friend, unwinding and relaxing after what has felt like a whirlwind crazy past few weeks. He kept telling me he felt like he should be entertaining me, but what I needed last weekend was a weekend to just be. I had told my mentor earlier in the week that I was looking forward to the weekend in Cleveland because I always come home feeling relaxed and I sleep better there than I tend to do at home.
While I was there, we had a conversation that struck me right in the heart. I don't think he quite understands or realizes how much that conversation impacted me, but it's been on my heart for the past week. The details of the conversation aren't important because what he said to me was pretty personal, but it was personal enough that I didn't know how to accept it. In fact, I'm fairly confident I laughed when he said it, which now I feel terrible about. I realized in thinking back on our conversation that the reason I laughed at what he said is because I don't know how to take a compliment. I wanted to disregard what he said to me as not true, when in reality, he seldom has sappy moments on me (I'm the sap out of the two of us) so when he does say those things, I need to remember that he says them for a reason and that he actually means them.
As I've sat on the words he said to me for the past week, I've realized that my problem is that I still don't believe that I am worthy enough to be loved, whether it is from my friends, my family, or even a relationship. Somewhere in my head I struggle to believe that people actually genuinely care about me and that instead, they just "put up with me." It sounds dumb even as I type it, but when I get inside my own head, it gets ugly. This is part of why I am in therapy....to sort all of this stuff out.
I had a conversation with my kindergarten best friend a couple of nights after my Cleveland trip and she spoke some much needed truth into my life. She laughed when I first told her about what I was feeling and even said that means the first 26 years of our friendship mean nothing. HA! But she was quick to remind me that those lies I still hear in my head are just that...lies. She reminded me that the people in my life LOVE ME and don't just "put up with me," as I phrased it. We were texting earlier tonight and she told me that she loved me and then said "By the way, tell your brain I meant that." I had to laugh because I know that she loves me, just like I know all the other people in my life love me. I just need to get out of my own head and fill my heart with truth.
I am thankful in particular tonight for these two friends of mine. To think one friendship has spanned 27 years is insane. I don't even know how I am old enough to have been friends with someone for that long! But I am thankful that when I look back on my life, the good, the bad, the ugly and all the in between, Diana is the one consistent person in my life. Our friendship has survived growing up on the same street, then her moving 30 minutes away and changing schools, me moving four hours away, our college years, her getting married, and so many other things we've been through. She is the person who is and always will be my biggest cheerleader. She tells me how it is, even when I don't want to hear it. She is the person who will cry with me, laugh with me, and pick me up when I need a friend. We go months between visits but it's as if no time at all has changed. We have been through it all together and I am so thankful to say I have a lifelong best friend in her.
As for Vince, well, I still find it odd sometimes that we are friends and he would agree with me. We are six years apart in age, have never lived in the same city in the entire span of our 11 years of friendship, and yet somehow he's become the other half of me I never knew was missing. There is no one who makes me laugh as much as he does, no one who puts me in my place the way he does, and no one who gets my heart the way he does. We get into the most ridiculous shenanigans together, but at the end of the day, when I need someone to sit and listen to me cry and vent or someone to pick me up, he is the person I go to. Our friendship is 100% built on communication since we have never lived in the same city and I think because we had to build our foundation that way, we quickly realized we had something special and we've worked hard to keep that communication open, no matter what life has thrown at us. Life would be so different without him and I am thankful every day for his friendship.
Between Vince and Diana, my life would be so incomplete because I would constantly feel as if something is missing. They are my go to people, the friends who love me right where I am and the friendships that have sustained years, distance, and so many life changes. Both of them will probably laugh at my sappiness but they are both a huge part of the realizations I have been learning, both in counseling and in my reflective quiet times and without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today.
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