Last week I spoke about remembering to be a part of a team as much as you remember to have a team of friends around you. I spoke of the importance of knowing your role, of trusting your value, and of knowing when to allow space for your friends to turn to their other team mates.
That got me thinking about my friends other people more closely. While I contemplated that they may need to spend time laughing with their funny friend, or cuddling with their affectionate one, for example, it also means that they are members of other teams. It means their other friends may call on them to be of service, taking them away from me temporarily, and from themselves somewhat too.
I have one friend who prides herself on being the helpful teammate. If you need someone to drive you to the airport at 2am, you don’t have to ask, she’ll offer. If you need a curtain rail installed, she can do that. If you need something from the shops, she’ll get it for you. If you need a babysitter, she’ll volunteer. I recognise this is her way of getting validation, helping and being useful to others. Showing off her skills. Paying for your friendship. She’s the first to say “why didn’t you ask me?” if she finds out you called a plumber for a leaky tap, or cancelled plans because you couldn’t get a sitter.
I love this about my friend. I love what a jack of all trades she is, and how helpful she truly is in her heart of hearts. I have learned to depend on her for practical things and to accept emotional things aren’t her strong point. What has been harder to accept, if I am honest, is how her usefulness keeps her so busy, and unavailable to an extent.
That sounds ungrateful, doesn’t it? When you consider how much she has done for me, it kinda is, I know! But hear me out. Sure, she’ll swing by and fix your tap and pick up your kid, then take your kid with her to grab someone else’s kid too then take them both to the hardware store to go to her other friends place to hang that curtain rail, before shooting off from there, 2 kids in tow to pick up that friend who needs a ride to the airport. Then she’ll drop your kid home, but she can’t stay, she has to drop the other one home too, then meet someone else at the park to walk the dogs!
This makes her a strange blend of dependable but somewhat unreliable. She’ll be late, undoubtedly, because if she can fit in an errand for someone else on the way to you she will. There are always people asking her for everything, and she is never the type to say no. It also means, she is never really present. Any time you’re with her, she’ll be on the phone, 100% of the time, and, often running errands. Her other team members are relentless!
But I never really stopped to think, that when she isn’t with me, I am just as relentless as they are. Everyone is pushing and pulling for a piece of her, all the time. Now feels like an appropriate time to mention that it goes both ways. Myself, and her other teammates also do things for her, and she has a long list of things she needs help with too. Some help her with yard work, or caring for the pets when she is away, or doing electrical work at her house. Personally, I’m more helpful with her day job, or grabbing things for her at the shops if she needs it, or doing those airport runs.
Being part of her team will give you the same in return as whatever you invest. It isn’t without reward. That said, it has been difficult for me to accept and understand that quality time is not something she’s really able to offer. I spent much time wondering what was so good about all the other people in her life that they got more of her than I do. It took me a long time to understand that they don’t. None of us do.
It always felt somehow, and it still does sometimes, if I am being honest, like her other team members were on some executive level I could never reach. Like mine were the only calls that went unanswered, or like I was the only one not invited to the proverbial party. Yet, she said to me the other day in casual conversation that her best male friend had been upset that he suggested plans and she was busy with me. He had remarked that I monopolised her time and kept him from her. I was honestly shocked. It never occurred to me that he saw me as any sort of competition. Or that he also felt like she was unavailable to him and was looking for someone else to blame.
We are all saying this and failing to notice the only person she never gets time for is herself!
The truth is, neither of us get as much of her as we would like. Nobody does. For whatever reason, she likes it that way. Or maybe she doesn’t, but regardless, that’s just how she is. I didn’t like the feeling that her friend felt resentment towards me. I hadn’t tried to keep her away from him, I knew how important he was to her. I long ago accepted he was somewhat more like family to her in a way I know I will never be, in a way I am not capable of being, or interested in being!
What struck me too, as I contemplated this, was that although she goes out of her way to help us all, in return all we do is make her feel like it is never enough. All she wants, deep down, I know, is to please us all. An impossible dream no matter what your friend number! So, I had to learn, sharing her is caring for her.
What this means is I ask for less. Less time, less favours, less attention. I expect and allow her other people to take up what space I do manage to create for us, or, I free her of obligation to me if I cannot tolerate their presence. I notice, for example that she made time for every other person in her world this Easter, except me. And I smile as she calls to tell me all about her adventures. I help arrange chocolate free egg hunts for the youngsters of her other people, commented her house was perfect for hosting garden parties and asked questions about how her people were.
I have to choose to see how all this brought such happiness to my friend, and be happy for her that it did. She doesn’t need more pressure to make time for me too. I know she will make time when she gets a moment, and I owe it to us to wait for my turn. For now, she needs to be around her other people… the ones who are family to her. Easter is a time for family after all. That isn’t me, and that is ok. I’ll answer when she calls to tell me how they all irritated her, just like a good friend does.
When it’s my turn, and she’s on the phone to them, I’ll smile, in awe that she takes such good care of her people and how much she takes on for everyone else, and I will tell her she is amazing. Because caring for her means sharing her, and recognising everyone on her team is equal, there is just so many of us that there isn’t much left to go around. When she isn’t tending to me, I will know that she is tending to her other people, and I will remind myself that she is a wonderful friend, to us ALL.
Sharing, as it turns out, really is caring!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
