bookends

We have these friends, you see, and I love them very much. We live in our house on purpose, as it fits snugly between the bookends of the most non-family family that we have. In all honesty, I am terrible at making friends. Not terrible at being friendly, which confuses most people. I am quite friendly. I was a church wife. It is a prerequisite. I can turn "on" and be engaging and charming and lovely and it is most often exhausting. Social settings that include more than 3 people generally make me hyperventilate and rehearse conversational topics in my head.

Anyway. Terrible. I am terrible at growing friendships; at taking the acquaintances to the next, knowing level. The friendships that I have have existed for many, many years. The ones I am trying to grow are slow. I like to believe that because of this weakness, there is a rooty richness to those which are present. Yes.

A few months ago one of our bookends burned down. It was horrible and tragic and terrifying and sad. And even though it is only a year that they are not right there, I have deeply missed the casualty of the every day ease of our friendship. It is hard enough to have pieces of them across the ocean for most of the year, but to have even our same-street ones far down at the beach is a slow, quiet drain on my heart.

Luckily, this isn't as depressing of a post as it has made itself out to be.

Last night we started the year the week the season with my most favorite and missed neighborhood ritual: Sunday Wine Nights. This one involved a minor trek to the temporary ocean-front beach house, but it was most worth it. There is beauty and security and peace found sitting amongst my most favorite grownups, sharing bottles of wine, and talking about family and life and Jesus while taking in winter sunsets. The way our year was starting, with the plague and messiness, I was disheartened. I needed last night. I needed the grounding warmth of those guys, the night of listening and talking and time, in order to walk into this year well. The bookends have expanded a bit for now, but roots of those relationships are growing deeper and farther into my earth. For this I am thankful. For them I am thankful.