Beautiful Crowded Skies and Learning to be a friend

My friend and fellow musician put out her second of three books. This one is called “Crowded Skies – Letters to Manhattan.” (which you should read!!) The first one “Here’s to Hindsight – Letters to My Former Self,” (which you should read also! Not just cause I’m in it!) was a beautiful set of vignette type chapters about going where God was taking her and all her learning and adventures along the way. (in which she quoted one of my songs! v. exciting.) I am only a few chapters into the second one, but I have some things to say already.

I came to the part where she talked about moving from Nashville to NYC and all the signs she had pointing her direction. She wrote that when she packed up her stuff to move to the City nearly three years ago, she only had 2 friends show up to help. I was not one of those two friends. Although I have made amends for being a crappy friend and firmly planting my head up the bum of my spouse when we got married, and not only made amends, but have regained a friendship with her, I am sad that I was once in that category of people who didn’t make time for her when she came off the road. I had all the reasons in the world, but that doesn’t make it right.

At the time, I remember the frustration I felt when she did come in town, but only had an hour or two to spend with me and usually cancelled at the last minute for (this was the story in my head) someone cooler or more helpful to her career than me, after I had rearranged my day to meet her. After a few times of that, decided that I didn’t want to make time for her. Here’s the catch though: I never spoke that frustration to her. I never called her out on the times she hurt my feelings. I let it pass and eventually she moved away.

If community is something I want to practice, I have to be willing to say the hard things. By not speaking up and not wanting to make her angry or hurt, I lost a friend, (at least until I got off my butt and earned her friendship back) and have done this time and again in years past. I assume, write a script in my head for what’s really going on between us and if it gets too hard, I give up. I’ll just call a spade a spade here and say that I’ve never been very good at being a friend. I either smother them with my neediness, feel slightly (subconsciously) superior and thus ignore them, or bend over backwards to “do” and “make time” and then feel used when they don’t give back in the same way. Not really room for connecting intimately (by that, I mean being seen, heard and know and seeing, hearing and knowing the other person) is there?

So either I sit firmly in the role of victim of the universe and am alone, or I speak up, say what I need, show my weaknesses and have real friends. I’m learning to do the second one. I suck at it too! I’m afraid of hurting people and of being hurt, so I often retreat to my corner, write angst-y songs about it all and then eventually creep out to try again. For those of you who are standing by me in this process, thank you. I’m getting better and that’s all I can do.

BTW, just a little FYI: I also wrote the song called Search Me which became Track #8, after we rewrote it a little to made it fit her, for the album that goes with the first book. It's called Here's to Hindsight and is available on her website, here.