What do best friends tell us about ourselves?

I just got a friend request from a woman I met when I was eight and we instantly became the best of friends for the two years she lived in Delphi.  My heart was thrilled to connect with her via Facebook, and reading her timeline gave me a glimpse of her life today. She’s a woman of deep faith, which made me think anew about what drew us together in the first place.

I didn’t realize that I have had a string of best friends who wanted to be good girls and actively chose to connect with a higher power and be part of a spiritual community. A couple of them probably didn’t have much choice as they were the daughters of local ministers. Still there was something simpatico about us that was a comfort.

This morning’s awareness comes in the context of a week where I’ve been focusing on a painful pattern of former best friends: over the course of my life at least four women have written me a letter to break off the friendship, the most recent five years ago. I’ve assumed whenever I see a pattern there is some insight to be gained through a thorough analysis. I had planned to journal about that, think about my role in that pattern, and try to understand why I’ve chosen people who once they really know me don’t want anything to do with me.

And then this friend from third grade turns up whose life has been devoted to God and I’m instantly aware of an alternative pattern.  Now the names of deeply spiritual best friends is in the foreground awaiting analysis, or at least curiosity. I am both rejected and desired, and perhaps neither means a thing.

Everyday I have a choice what grabs my attention. Since I have limited time to write, contemplate, and dig deeper, where am I going to put that energy today? If I focus on the nourishing connections and continue to meditate, my experience is that an answer to why I’ve experienced a string of rejections will be revealed in its own time.  

I may have an aha moment or awareness, recognize my part, and be able to consciously choose differently, but I don’t have to dig around for it. Instead, I can respond to the invitation from someone who wants to be connected.