A good friend and my new running partner (even this sounds funny when I say it outloud), recently sent me a link to a video I want to share with you. With it she said “this youtube video made me think of you, my very kindhearted friend… it reflects just the kind of thing that you might have thought and stopped to do.”
After I watched it I thought about the great friends I have and how they really see me better than I really am and see me the way I want to be seen. It is this way that our closest friends see us that make us try harder to live up to the notions they have of us.
I have had a few friends and boyfriends in my life, who saw me worse than I think I am and I could not continue those friendships. I realized somehow being with them would bring me down and I might get stuck there. The world is tough and can be cold- we have to surround ourselves with warm people who see us as wonderful and unique and let us be everything we can be.
About 30 years ago I had a friend/colleague and we were talking about this very high profile person who worked in Italy in our head office. She was older, unique, handsome, with a fiery temper and odd interests. I turned to my friend and said ” Oh I would just love to have dinner with her” and she said to me ” what on earth would you possibly have to say to her?”
wow.
She was my friend and I liked her so much but I did not like the way she saw me.
I realize that those things are often said more as a reflection of how that person views themselves- but nonetheless, it stuck out.
We want to come up to how we are seen not down.
Nance – this is a beautiful video and this is you for sure. Your “running friend” nailed it.
I remember when you called me once crying after your mom died saying “you see me the way I want to be seen”. This is what moms do, this is what best friends do. This is the greatest gift of all.
I wasted a lot of my middle and high school time listening to friends who had their own way of seeing me that certainly wasn’t helpful. “You’d be so pretty if”…you lost 10 pounds, grew your hair longer… there was always something left to fully impress. University was so liberating because I was on my own, and finally new eyes saw me in a different light, not in need of constant upgrading. One phrase I am going to impress on my children is simply telling people “that is not helpful” when people are being just so and to move on rather than getting stuck trying to jump through some else’s moving hoop.
Great post!
thanks Id- yes not “helpful” – but I might come up with stronger words!