Not long ago, I was at dinner with my kids and their college friends. (Yes, I got invited once!) I thought I’d stir the pot a bit and said, “Name one thing your friend has or does that drives you nuts.”
Without missing a beat, each one had an answer:
“Your ugly sandals.”
“Sick of seeing your orange t-shirt.”
“The way you chew in the morning.”
It was instant, honest, hilarioussssss. No hemming and hawing. Somehow, it wasn’t even offensive. And they agreed in their distaste for certain things! That made the convo even funnier. It wasn’t any soul scraping stuff, just stuff the universe knows to be true. If anything, it made their friendship feel stronger. You could tell these guys loved each other.
Much like my own friend who hates the word truly. In trying to avoid saying it, I end up saying it twice as much. Truly, I do.
As much as we try to embody kindness and patience, the truth is we’re not all connected by a love of pickleball and Chick-fil-A. It’s the little everyday habits. The quirks. The annoyances. The ugly sandals. The chewing. The words we wish the other would just stop saying.
Take my husband. He once used the word refreshing early in our marriage. “Are you 80??” I asked. He’s mindful not to use that word around me now.
Then I asked him what I do that grates on him.
Wisely, he said “nothing.” See? We get each other.
I learned this early on with my own college roommates. We could argue for a half hour over who left the cap off the toothpaste, much like siblings do. Or when going on a trip, my roommate couldn’t stand how long it took me to pack. It drove her crazy to watch me do something she could complete in five minutes. So she did it herself for that trip and many others. Problem solved. Friends just know how to smooth out the wrinkles in each other.
That’s love. You don’t pretend the other person is perfect. You just accept the parts that aren’t and keep going.
And some things become legend. Like my husband’s floral beach shirt. It’s hideous and in every single vacation photo. Normally he wears button downs for work and somewhat snarky t-shirts for the gym. But for vacation, that’s his go-to shirt, made of magic-fabric (mag-fab) that somehow fits him year after year regardless of his size. We see it and suddenly we’re back on that trip: the airborne beach umbrella, the cart stuck in the sand, him sweating digging a hole for the kids to splash in, cursing at the tent, sunburned, just being Dad.
Same with my friend and her slip. After a long day of classes, she’d throw on ‘the slip.’ No more tight jeans, no more hanging out. The slip meant programming was done for the day. Just like when a woman takes off her bra. There are no more errands, spur of the moment activities, no evacuation for a fire. Done. All done.
When we accept this stuff about our friends, not only is life easier, it’s sweeter. Again, we’re not all holding hands around a campfire singing Taylor Swift songs and making bracelets. Life isn’t always that pretty.
But these moments -odd, messy, ridiculous – are what make us us. You can’t be an “us” without this stuff.
