Friendship

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately.

Maryn had her 14th birthday party here the other night and had five close friends over for a fancy Mormon-style tea party, dancing, and general goofing off. It was the dancing that struck me. After they ate, they turned up the background music playing on the iPod and just started romping around the living room together like drunk ponies. As a good parent, I kept my distance and observed out of the corner of my eye while washing dishes in the next room. I didn't want to ruin the vibe by, you know, being an adult in their vicinity. As I watched, I thought, "Yeah, they're friends." Why? Because no one, especially not a self-conscious 14 year old, is going to just start shaking it in the living room to Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" unless they feel supremely safe. You only feel that kind of comfort when you're with real friends, the tried and tested kind that you know you can trust. It filled up my heart to see that Maryn has those kinds of friends here. Each one of them is whip smart and quirky. Some of them are big pop culture fiends, others are talented musicians, and each is a sweetheart who is kind and loving to Maryn. In many ways, I see these girls as a direct answer to countless prayers we offered when we were living in Illinois and Maryn was the loneliest girl in the Midwest.

Avery also has a group of friends. She switched schools at the beginning of this year, primarily because there was a strong little nucleus of LDS girls her age at Jefferson Middle School. We definitely encouraged her in that direction because we knew the kids she had found at Northeast Middle School were sketchy. They swore, they talked about sex, they had boyfriends, they spent lunch hour looking at YouTube videos that they probably shouldn't have. Three or four LDS girls with high standards, good parents, and an enthusiasm for Avery coming to their school seemed like Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan appearing with the rising sun just as Helm's Deep was about to fall to Sauroman's army. (I'm a nerd. Just go with it, please.) So then she had automatic friends at school, and she got to see her school friends at church. It was like it was meant to be.

So everybody's happy, right?

Well, what's that John Lennon lyric? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I'm not 100% sure that's exactly applicable here, but it's the idea of unpredictability and the unexpected that I'm getting at.

Two of Maryn's friends have come out as gay in the last month or two. And, what's more, they have decided they like each other. So while their little group is having their intense little gabfests about Dr. Who or the latest funny cat video they saw on Facebook in the lunchroom, one girl is resting her head on the other girl's shoulder with her arm around her back. It's weird any time two friends out of a group start forming a romantic relationship with each other, but I think it's especially awkward and potentially confusing when both friends are the same sex. I'm far from homophobic. I'm certainly far more liberal when it comes to homosexuality and gay marriage than the vast majority of my LDS friends and family members. But these are 14 year old girls and my daughter's best friends. So I worry. If nothing else, I worry about these two girls getting persecuted for being different in Midland, a very conservative place, and I worry about Maryn being lumped in with them. I don't have a ton of faith in other people's kids. I generally assume they're mean and narrow, eager to label, quick to judge. I don't want Maryn to be labeled or mocked for something that isn't even hers to claim.

Meanwhile, Avery is facing something I've struggled with my whole life. What do you do when the nice Mormon kids aren't that nice? She's struggling right now, not because her friends are leading her to make any of the stereotypical  middle school mistakes ("Hey kid, want a cigarette?"), but because sometimes 12 year old girls are just kinda snotty and being Mormon doesn't stop that. ("Do you need help putting on your makeup in the morning? Do you need me to come over to your house early so I can teach you how to put on eye liner?" "You're not going to wear those boots with those pants, are you?" "Avery Jane Brown, what ARE you wearing?") She's struggling because she feels like she has to rely on these good Mormon girls at this new school of hers, and they are not the dancing-in-the-living-room kind of friends. Everything feels conditional and unpredictable. One girl in particular will freeze her out one day, and then cling to her like leech the next. (The worst is when this friend totally ignores her at school on a Wednesday but won't leave her side at Young Women the same evening.) So she comes home moody and miserable almost every afternoon because she is in a new place and doesn't feel like she has a safe haven with the very friends she came over for.

When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I had a friend actually break up with me. His name was Rusty, and we were pals from church. He lived across the street, and we hung out a lot over the summer doing the stupid stuff 13 and 14 year old boys do - go karts, bb guns, movies, talking endlessly about "hot chicks." I was essentially Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, once school started, he came over one afternoon and said, "I just don't think I should hang out with you as much. It used to be that cute, popular girls said 'hi' to me in the halls, and now they don't as much. I think it's because I've been hanging out with you." Looking back on this experience, I am astounded to realize that he literally broke up with me. The thing is, we were both heterosexual males - so there was none of the break-it-to-them-gently, it's-not-you-it's-me crap. Nope. "You're not popular enough for me, dude. See ya later, sucker." It sucked and is probably part of what makes me so irritable and sensitive about the treatment Avery is receiving right now.

Junior high and the early part of high school were pretty lonely for me. I had friends, of course. I wasn't a total outcast, but mostly it felt like we were sort of place-holders for each other. We would go to movies or hang out because our "real friends" hadn't come along. We knew each other's families, partnered up at camp outs, and sat by each other at lunch, but it's not like we ever talked about anything important or felt great loss if someone was absent from school that day. I'm not in touch with any of those guys these days. (Ironically, I'm Facebook friends with Rusty now. I ought to unfriend him with a message saying, "People used to like my posts but since they saw I'm FB friends with you, they don't as much any more.")

But then high school rolled around and my real friend did show up. I met Tony Mosier when I was 15 years old and for the last 25 years, he has been my best friend. We live two time zones apart, have very little in common when it comes to work or income or family background, and only get to see each other every other year or so. And yet, I know, without a doubt, I could call him at this very moment (11:34 p.m., on a Tuesday night in December) and say, "Dude, I just killed a guy. I need help getting rid of the body," and he would say something like, "How big a guy? Do I need to bring a shovel or should we look into renting a backhoe for half a night?" He's that kind of friend. I spoke to him last week and just whined about the various irritations and inconveniences that accompany being a chubby 40 year old husband and father of three. I didn't think for a second, "Gee, I hope he's not offended/bothered/bored/etc. with what I'm saying." I didn't have to worry that he was going to make me feel bad or stupid for what I was saying. I knew he'd just listen, probably make me laugh by saying something utterly crude and inappropriate, and then just say, "Dude, that sucks."  And that, to me, is perfect friendship. Utter acceptance, a good amount of empathy, and the general feeling of "That person is totally cool. And weirdly enough, they think I'm cool too. Cool."

So my thing is, I know what real friendship feels like. I know how it armors you against the people in the world whose only goal seems to be making you feel stupid or small. I know how it comforts you on those days when the world comes apart at the seams. I know how it makes you feel better about yourself and the world. That's what I want for my girls. Those are the kinds of friends I want them to find and keep. I want them to find people who will protect them rather than lead them into trouble. I want them to have people who will accept them and not act like they are only as worthwhile as what they are wearing.

Friendship has buoyed me through death and disaster in my life. It is, I think, one of the great things we were put on earth to experience. I'm praying for my daughters that they will get to experience the best of it.