Fringe-ships {Considering Friendship at Mid-life}

Sometimes we walk circles around each other. How has time changed us? Are we afraid to touch in the here and now because we might risk losing what has been?

Do you feel it like I have? These kids shooting up, then out from under our wings?

They come and go from us in their cars and in their lives. They are like waves, always coming and going and we run out to race after them. They hurry away from us out into the ocean of their lives.

And we live in our houses, our worlds, take care of the ones still on the shore but knowing we’ll chase them too----and we brace.

We look at our parents and glimpse the future and grasp for the now, but we can’t hold time.

We go to church, the one where we laid down our hearts, and we grasp to live in eternity because this can’t be all there is.

Could we be blind to what could be the greatest gift of our lives---the second act?
Are we afraid we will find pain that we cannot bear with ones whom we have shared so much? Could we know each other too well?

Forgive me for walking circles around you, my friends. For loving you from the outside and not bringing you into my life.

I’ve been lost over here, looking for how to live. I haven’t done much intentional living with you. My soul is heavy with regret.

This morning God let me know clearly that I am falling short when it comes to loving well those he has placed in my life for “such a time as this.”

How to love you? I don’t know. Love is there, as is respect, and need, and not least, desire to have your lives intersecting with mine.

I want you to know, that any blame lies with me, not you. I have asked the Lord to forgive, to turn me back to those who He has given me to share life, to love. To live with only treasured memories is not enough.

We have the now. We are not promised another day. We can’t hold back time but we live in it. I want to live with you into the future----its joys, its pain, and the uncertainty of what lies before us.

I am praying you want the same with me. This is not a desperate plea. It is a conviction from the deep part of me that you know and that part you don’t know. I can be a puzzle and I pull the shades and I fold up on myself.

Insecurity still dogs me, but I fight and win with my Savior battling. To settle for fringe-ships, friends on the edges of life, this is not God’s will.

I don’t know how this works out practically, but it is my heart today. I lay it out there and realize that you may scratch your head at my words, laugh, or maybe cry.

I know just as our lives change,so do friendships, and they should. If I have slipped away from you, will you let me slide back in? I don’t want to grow old with out your laughter and your tears, your wisdom and creativity, the beautiful women you are who have taught me so much from your examples, your gifting.

Let's not circle around each other anymore-----unless we are dancing.