SAD Challenge...Surrounding Ourselves With Friendship
All different kinds will do!
Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
Bill Watterson
There can be tremendous pressure to have “best friends.” People with whom we share our deepest, darkest secrets and, yes, it is wonderfully nourishing, but…making and keeping friends like that is a true commitment.
As parents, we can be very concerned with our children’s friends. Do we helicopter it? Sometimes…but for this week, let’s focus on our own friendships. We know, by this time, that it is typical and healthy to have so many different kinds of friends. School friends, work friends, gym friends, dog-walking friends, old friends, newer friends…the lists go on and on. And every single one of them enriches your life, and keeps your spirits buoyed as the sun slips away and winter approaches (unless your friends don’t feed your soul and, in that case, you made need to take a little look-see at that fact).
SAD FRIENDSHIP CHALLENGE:
Some ideas to try….
CALL a friend who you haven’t spoken to in a while. Sure, a text is great, but a call is better. More skin in the game, you know?
Tell a close friend why you love them. Just list it. If they ask you if you are dying, the answer is “yes” (we all are but you can tell them that you are currently in good health), AND tell them you just wanted to do it.
Take a chance and go to the party that you were invited to where you don’t know a ton of people. I recently did it and, while it exhausted me, it was joyful beyond measure.
Buy a work friend a yummy coffee with a stickie thanking them for listening to your bitchin’ and moanin’.
Send old pictures to your long time friends, thanking God that we couldn’t livestream our shenanigans.
Journal about your favorite characteristics of your friends. Thinking out-loud, mine are: humor, open-heartedness, loyalty, willingness to try new shit, they show up, not petty (ish), patient, did I say funny?
No matter how far in the future it is, plan a trip with friends. Go ahead. You do have the time and the money. You do.
What did I miss?
Drop your ideas below for how to love on your friends this winter.
And listen to this playlist while you do it, it is fun and RANDOM.
Love you,
meghan