“So, what are you going to do about it?” she asked. I had nowhere to hide. She was looking straight at me….as you do when you’re talking to someone and you are the only two people in your house….but that’s not the point….the point is she was looking straight at me and calling bullshit on my little charade.
After a few too many seconds of my best blank look back at her she followed up with….”Look, I know you like to ponder the emotional side of things and the reasons behind everything but that’s not really getting you anywhere is it? I’m a strategy kind of girl and I figure if something isn’t working you come up with a plan to change it”
The following feeling was a weird combination of ouch and fuck I love this woman. As the saying goes in our house ‘only a true friend would be so truly honest’. I’m pretty sure we stole it off a movie but it’s one of those things that we’ve taken and used for so long we feel like it was totally our creation.
My bff (bullshit fighting friend) had just cut straight to the heart of my oh-so-terrible first world problems. She had cut me off mid lament, sending my harp crashing to the floor. She didn’t want to hear how my last 6 months felt like I was trudging through mud. She didn’t want to know the reasons why everything was feeling like hard work because she knew that when I said reasons I meant excuses.
I had not picked this friend for her go easy and sympathetic characteristics because the smart girl in me knew that support isn’t always about agreeing and sympathising. If she had done either of those two things I would been left in the same stagnant position I was in. Sometimes the best support is helping someone get forward motion, and sometimes the best way to do that is with a boot up the butt. The profound difference between what my friend was doing and what some would call being a bitch is that she was doing it with love in her heart. I knew she had my best interests in mind and was tucking me under her wing in her own way.
And so it is. My 2014 theme has been declared as ACTION. Not lights, camera, action…..just ACTION……because I know otherwise I would spend 11.5 months getting the lights and camera perfect and then it would be almost Christmas and action would have to wait until the next new year.
What is your 2014 theme?
The not quite free spirit 