Monday, February 27, 2006

Abby

Over this weekend I’ve realized how incredibly blessed I am for the people in my life. I have a lot of people around me who I really just respect and in many cases look up to.

They sure aren’t perfect… I mean, today I was convinced to make our church hate me by receiving a cell call in the middle of the sermon (it was all a joke, I think everyone got over it and it made a good point). But each person brings something I can really admire.

This past weekend Abby, a good friend of mine, came to visit from Pennsylvania. I suckered her into coming by offering to pay for her gas and entry to go line dancing (both of which I still got her to pay for (goes to show you shouldn’t trust me I guess :) ).

We had a crazy busy time going to movies with friends from church and birthday dinner with my family. In it all we also had some good conversations. We’ve talked every few days over IM, but I’d only met her in Mississippi last November so it was a weird long-distance friendship.

While we were line dancing at Nick’s, and on the way home we just got to talk a lot. I learned more about the person she is in that one evening that I’d learned in 3 months of chatting. What I found really impressed me.

Abby is 9 years younger than I am and has a firmer grasp on her life than I think I have now. Again, she’s still kind of messed up in some ways, and has some healing to go through. At the same time I was completely impressed with how confident she is in herself, her realistic outlook on relationships and her ability to be so honest she’ll openly disagree with someone no matter who is around. She exudes peacefulness to those around her, even if she may not be feeling so peaceful inside.

On the way home from dancing we got to talking about her past dating relationships. I was struck by how few people she’s dated (and how short the relationships were), because she’s unwilling to put up with someone who isn’t looking for the same thing she is. She’s also unwilling to compromise her morals in even little ways. I can’t tell you how many times in college I compromised my morals thinking it would help my relationship and help me change the person.

I can look at her and see someone who is so sure about what she wants that she’s at peace with it all. Even when things don’t go as she wants them to, she still has a positive outlook on it all. I just can’t tell you how good that feels. She’s definitely one of those people who you’ll tell your life story to before you realize you’ve opened your mouth.

Now, as I said before, Abby has some incredibly serious problems that we may never overcome. She loves peanut butter… she loves bread… and she won’t even try sushi. As you can tell, she has some real problems that I may never cure her of (she seemed pretty adamant that peanut butter was good and couldn’t understand when I explained how gross it is). At the same time she was willing to try eating snails at my birthday dinner. Anyone who is willing to try something that different will always get my respect (realizing the rest of Erin’s family wouldn’t touch them and, sadly, even Rachel wouldn’t eat her bite).

As Abby headed on home I couldn’t help but feel a bit emptier for her leaving. I still miss seeing that person who is comfortable watching the world and sitting in silence with a friend. Someone who can talk to a person and know almost immediately whether they will work well together.

I hope you have people like this in your life. Friends you can admire and love for who they are. People you can look at and wish to emulate. It also got me wondering whether I have any traits people want to admire. I’m sure that I do, just as I’m sure you have traits others would want to mimic. I guess it’s time we look to those around us and begin emulating what they do well. Maybe it’s also time to let those around us know what it is about them that we find makes them special.

So long as Abby reads this I’m set for telling at least one person.

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

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