Friendship

that summer day had been spent at the beach and both of us could feel the prickle of tension growing between us.

untalked about.

it blew up when I offered Jana some shrimp, which she turned down because the tail of the shrimp were covered in the shell, and she was used to shrimp that was completely de-veined (de-pooped, I call it). I giggled at her, probably blowing myself up a little bit because I was willing to eat shrimp that had not been cleaned, and I called her "cute" which any other time would have been okay if she couldn't taste the sarcasm in my voice.

That is when the crap hit the fan.

I love when the crap hits the fan because at this time friends are given the opportunity to heal or not heal. We healed. It took awhile... an entire summer of fighting over the same guy without ever really discussing what we were doing--he was tall and mysterious and she was bold and would "drop by" to use his toilet and then call me and tell me as I shied off in the distance as I do when I like a guy. It took us going as "best friends" to Bangladesh where we fought about hairspray and tampons and safety pins until we came to a resolution that "sharing" happened between friends-- and it took Jana's engagement to Nathan where I got less of her and struggled with dealing with this sense of loss of her as a friend to bring us to this stage of committing to each other as best friends forever, no matter what, until the end of time. This has been healthy. Even if I go to Africa and am a missionary and grow a beard? you'll still be my best friend? She always says yes. And I don't plan on growing a beard.

Relationships are like this, I have found. uphill, downhill, around the hill and back, but still, none the less, on the hill. there is something freeing in deciding that this is a person you want to stay best friends with-- and no matter what, I want to be best friends with Jana because she shrivels her hands up when she sees little things and uses high-pitched voices and loves old people and laughs a fat laugh and loves spending time with me even if we are bored out of our gorde, which I don't even know how to spell. Jana is my biggest fan, and I am hers because I think she is beautiful and able to sing with the angels and even if she had absolutely no talents which she is convinced she doesn't she would still be this big shining light that takes over every room she enters.

I lived with Jana once, for a semester. I'd get in late and we'd lay there and talk--credit-carding each other, discussing how okay it was if I ate her oatmeal in the morning--talking about boys and problems, crying, not getting enough sleep and crying more. I always wanted a brown friend, and I got one.

All this to say, friendship is so important for people. It's this space of accountability where you can talk about yourself and your feelings and your insecurities and be exposed all the way open and still be seen as this beautiful flower. It's important to see people as beautiful flowers, I think. Encouragement is so necessary, so watering-- in Proverbs it says that if there is no wood put in the fire, the fire goes out. Like our relationship with God, like this friendship--in order to stay close with him we must spend time with him which happens to be radical and weird to the world to need time alone in a room that is completely silent--loud with his presence. I have come to see how much we need people in our lives, or our insides get all dried up--and hot coals don't last long without alittle newspaper. Jana is my newspaper. She fires me up to want to become more--she is my best friend mostly because she is brown and I always wanted a brown friend, but secondly because she adores me and encourages me to be more and proclaim the name of Jesus to everyone I walk into, even if it means doing it without any words.

She can do it without any words.

God'll bring you a best friend like this if you just ask him, but you can't have mine.