Friends Are A Gift You Give Yourself
My oldest boy is fifteen and was a real jerk about a month ago.
He had gotten pretty full of himself and acted like he was too
cool for the rest of the family. Pretty typical teenager
behavior, but I didn't like it. I had gotten to the end of my
patience with him and laid into him about how lousy it felt to
be treated that way. We ended up in a huge fight. He argued that
he wasn't acting any different than normal and that I was just
choosing to see things negatively. So, I laid out numerous
examples of his selfish "me me me" behaviors without stopping to
take a second breath. He hates it when I go off like that, but
once he was ready to really talk, I came down off of my soapbox.
He was close to tears. Apparently, I'd hit a nerve. He confessed
that his closest friends at school had been trying to tell him
the same thing recently and he wasn't hearing them. Now he
suddenly knew what it was they had been trying to say. He felt
awful and began to make immediate changes in his behaviors
towards others. He really hated the idea that he was hurting
anyone's feelings by being cold and uncaring.
We talked a lot that night about how family sort of has to put
up with each other. Family is always there for you. Family can
embarrass you and you still have to acknowledge them in public.
Family can and will scream at you until you finally get the
point that you're being a jerk. You really don't have much
choice over who your family is.
Friends, on the other hand, are a gift that you give yourself.
Friends don't have to put up with your attitudes if they don't
want to. Friends can leave you hanging if you're not very nice
towards them. Friends aren't friends for very long if you're
embarrassing them in public. Friends usually won't scream at you
to get their point across. You handpick your friends to be
something different and special. They aren't quite the same as
family.
In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. Do you listen
to them? Do you care for them? Do you encourage them? You have
to give a lot of yourself to be a good friend to someone. But in
the end, you are the one who benefits the most. It's not about
becoming some kind of martyr without any personal needs or
thoughts towards your own well-being. It's more about nurturing
a cherished relationship. That way, you have a dear friend to
hang out with when your family is driving you bonkers. You have
someone to laugh and play with. You have someone safe to share
your hopes and dreams with. You have someone to talk to who
isn't going to blab to the rest of the family that you think
your mom is an overbearing control freak or that your stepfather
isn't turning out to be your idea of what a dad could be.
Through our discussions that night, we were able to tap into
what was it about my son that made him such a great guy to hang
out with over the years. It was his ability to genuinely care
about others and his intuitive compassion for everyone that made
him more than just popular, but a real friend to all. He's the
kind of guy who always sticks up for the smaller kids and looks
after the lost children. Once I reminded him of who he used to
be, he realized how much of his focus had turned inwards towards
himself instead of outwards towards those whom he cared about.
He said that he'd gotten so wrapped up in his new cool friends
and in his public image at school that he hadn't even understood
what his old friends were talking about when they said he was
cold and uncaring now. Turning his attention inwards had caused
him to alienate many of his closest friends and family. Now he
suddenly felt very much alone in the world. Luckily, it hadn't
been happening for very long before I'd blown up at him and made
him look at it. He was able to quickly readjust back into the
caring person he used to be and was able to feel loved and
supported by his friends and family again. He passionately dove
back into his friendships.
He learned that you can treat your brother like garbage and he's
always your brother and you will have to see each other at
family gatherings whether you ever learn to be close or not.
Friends on the other hand, can and will walk out of your life if
you are cold and uncaring towards them. Family will eventually
just shrug their shoulders and excuse your self-absorbed
behavior as just the way you are, friends won't. I find it's the
friendships that we love and nurture like family that last
forever as if they were family. And, it's the family members
that we love and nurture like friends that we form the strongest
and closest bonds with.
They say that we learn our social skills from our siblings, but
I'm not so sure about that anymore. My stepmother wasn't a very
nurturing type and when we were younger my sister and I were not
very close. So through my girlfriends, I got that female
connection that I just couldn't get from my family. My
girlfriends became my surrogate family and taught me a lot about
how to really be there for someone else. My sister and I have
only recently become friends in the last few years. We are
forming a different kind of bond then what we had when we were
children. It's much better now. I would never treat my friends
the way I used to treat my sister!
Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge