Being There

I got back this weekend from about a week with a friend. One I've had for just about 20 years.
Over the last 20 years we're lived both near and far from each other many times over. We've spoken every day and not at all for months at a time. We've gone through life changes both by choice and by nature; both hard, difficult and messy as well as lovely, celebratory and easy to navigate.
In 20 years we've been there.

I was thinking during our time together this week that it's not easy, maintaining a friendship. As evidenced over this past year God has been stripping, re-making and molding my relationships, specifically those with other adult women.
It has honestly stunk.
I've lost friends, or at least been downgraded to mere acquaintance and made several new friends that I am so thankful to have in my life now.

This is the first time I've really spent any real time with Laine since the last (and biggest) change in his life. I told him over lunch one day that I was nervous. Because I didn't want to say the wrong thing or offend him or his friends with my inexperience with this latest life change. I didn't have any experiences to compare going through this change to, it's outside any realm of comprehension that I could imagine. So I'm just trying to love him well and figure out what that looks like as I go, which isn't always perfect or correct.

I'm just being there. I'm showing up even when it's awkward or uncomfortable, I'm showing up when it's easy and fun and when it's hard and humbling.

Because it's all I know how to do, and somehow that has been enough for us the last 20 years.