friendship Archives - Megan Hallier

When broken people try to build relationships

I’ve been thinking recently about the cost of relationships.

Being in a relationship, be it romantic, friendly, forced by blood relation or other, is costly. People come into our lives and leave muddy footprints all over them.

Relationships require so much patience, compassion and forgiveness. Sometimes it feels too hard. Too costly. Too much to ask.

For example, I like to take good care of my things. I place a great deal of value in my possessions and so I tend to treat all of them with my utmost respect.

However, I am learning that other people do not take the same precautions with their own possessions nor those of anyone else for that matter.

I came to realize this the hard way in my first flatting experience.

Somehow I ended up flatting with three loud, rambunctious, messy boys.

I never thought I would flat with boys at all, let alone three at once, but God has such a great sense of humour that way.

So I would often find myself stumbling into wrestling matches on the living room floor, piggy-back rides in the kitchen and tea box tower construction in the pantry.

And as you can imagine, such chaos often left casualties. Fortunately, nay miraculously, none of us were ever harmed, but the same cannot be said for our flat, furniture and crockery.

Cups were chipped, once white tea towels became grey and splotchy, spatulas were singed on hot frying pans and beautiful china bowls were cracked irreparably.

There was this one bowl I was particularly fond of because it was on the clearance shelf at the kitchenware store.

It was white with this delicate turquoise pattern etched all around it. I fell in love the minute I laid eyes on this bowl and I knew I had to buy it.

If I had a china cabinet I would have kept it nicely tucked away in there because it was almost too beautiful to be used.

One day I came home and found my precious bowl with a big, ugly chip in its rim.

And not only that, but inching from the chip right through the middle of the bowl was a hairline crack which I knew spelled disaster.

It broke my heart.

I knew I shouldn’t have trusted those careless boys with my beautiful bowl. This is why we can’t have nice things. Because people are sloppy and careless and incredibly clumsy.

If we let them use our fine china it will get chipped, it’s only a matter of time.

I stormed around the flat for a little bit and muttered to myself about how careless boys are and how I should teach them a lesson about breaking other peoples precious belongings.

And I was getting all puffed up and ready to fight until I realized how melodramatic and absurd I was being.

It was a bowl for goodness sake. It was no antique, it wasn’t a heirloom, it wasn’t given to me by someone very special.

It probably cost less than 15 dollars. It had no sentimental or monetary value and yet I felt so outraged that someone had broken something that belonged to me.

It’s a joy to have nice things. It just makes sense that you would look after the things which you have spent your hard earned money on.

But it becomes a problem when we value our things more than people.

So this brings me back to the cost of relationships. The fact that sharing my life, my home and my space with other people means that things won’t ever be the same.

They’ll leave their fingerprints all over my wineglasses. Their problems cluttering up my quiet Friday evening. Their brokenness chipping a hairline crack of disappointment and hurt throughout the smooth crockery of our relationship.

But I don’t want to be the kind of person who is so caught up in bubble-wrapping her china bowls that she misses out on communing with friends.

I don’t want to become obsessed with collecting things that I lose the chance to build a community that depends on sharing.

Too often I think we let our pride, our egos and our desire for perfection to get in the way of real connection. True intimacy. Deep relationship.

But I want to learn how to let people in.

I want to love others. I want to drink from chipped cups and wear my best friends socks and lend someone my sweater when it gets cold.

I want to trade lemons from your tree for basil from my garden. I want to swap chocolate chip cookie recipes and your mom’s famous potato salad recipe.

I want to be the kind of person who values people, not things.

And that isn’t an easy thing for me to do. Because people with my personality type tend to want to keep things to them self. We so badly want to be different, unique and important and it can feel like allowing people to see all of us will spoil that.

I’m deeply afraid that someone will copy me and then I won’t be so special anymore.

But I’m learning that this is one of the costs of relationships. The fact that someone might copy us or abandon us or hurt us in ways we never saw coming.

It is so messy and risky and completely gut-wrenching at times, but it is what we were made for after all.

To love and be loved. To share and be seen. To lean on and lead on one another.

So come on over and use my best china because life is for living, not just for looking at.

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In Building relationships

Craving community and the cost of real connection

craving-connection-the-cost-of-real-community

When I think of community I am reminded of those big cheesy quilts that hang in libraries, town halls and council offices. With pieces of fabric cut into various shapes representing the famous landmarks of the town. Smiley faces of children waving from playgrounds. Buses winding up and down the thin strips of grey material. Cotton bud clouds, rippling streams, parks with cheery swing sets.

It’s a picture of happiness, warmth and safety.

A wonderful reminder of what it looks like when we do this thing right.

This mish-mash of colour, texture and patterns requires an experienced hand to sew it all together. Because traditionally, quilts are made in small squares, then these individual pieces are slotted together and sewn to create one masterpiece.

Each person works on their square, stitching themself into it.

Some sew tight, neat little stitches, bound up like the tension they hold in their shoulders. Some sew large, loose stitches. Looping carelessly, lighter than a feather.

And somehow these mismatching segments have to pair up at the ends and complete the square pattern.

Community is a funny thing. This group of imperfect people getting together and attempting to create something beautiful and worth celebrating.

At times it can feel like more of a shambles than a beautiful quilt.

The strain of different stories and mismatching beliefs creating gathers and tucks instead of smooth seams.

This world is full of messy, broken people, desperately trying to fit in. More than anything we just want to belong. We just want people to love and accept us.

But more often than not, I feel like I don’t fit in.

I often feel embarrassed that I cannot hold myself together. I frequently assume I’m the only one who is coming apart at the seams. Perhaps I am, or it may be that I’m the only one who’s being honest.

Is it really true that you feel fine every time someone asks you how you are doing? Do you really have nothing that you are afraid of? Nothing you are longing for? Nothing that rattles you or causes you to lose sleep at night?

Am I really the only one who feels like a mess?

Seems unlikely.

The truth is that we think we need to have it all together. We need to don these masks and keep our worries to ourselves so as not to burden the rest of the world with our problems.

We think we are the only ones who are struggling. We believe it’s our responsibility to gather up these crumbly bits of our lives and carry them all on our own. This is our cross to bear and we clutch it tightly.

We’re afraid that if we let others see our broken pieces they’ll be overwhelmed or judgmental. Or that they will reject us and our cumbersome baggage.

But I’m so tired of living this way.

I hate feeling like I’m the only one whose cheese is always falling off of their cracker.

I hate being the only one who gives their whole heart in every conversation.

I’m craving authenticity like oxygen. I thirst for honesty like a cool drink of water. I’m desperately hungry for a taste of realness.

Give me more of your imperfections, your mistakes and your shortcomings. I need to breathe again.

Can’t you see that these are the things that make us human? Don’t you know that these are the threads that connect us to one another?

This world has become far too scripted, airbrushed and filtered, it’s hard to tell what’s real anymore. We put up walls and we get defensive. We keep each other at arm’s length and avoid deeper conversations. We beat around bushes and we stick to polite small talk.

This is not real love. This is not real community.

We need to be all in.

Giving everything regardless of what we get in return. We need to be there to cheer for one another in the high points. We need to be a shoulder to cry on in the low points. We need to pray for, fight for and root for one another.

Because what I do know is this…I can’t get enough of people who let me see them fully. I’m like a moth drawn to a flame. This kind of honesty is irresistible.

And what I’ve noticed is something beautiful happens as we co-exist. As we rub up alongside one another we begin to adopt pieces of everyone around us. A phrase from one person, a gesture from another.

Rather than those separate quilt squares stitched together, we become like this beautiful tapestry. We are interwoven. Threaded through each other. We become so much a part of one another’s stories that it’s hard to tell where one person starts and another ends.

That’s the vision I have for my community. Tightly bound, bright and colourful, not easily unraveled.

Creating community like this is all of our responsibility. And it takes hard work. Building trust doesn’t happen overnight. It takes patience and persistence. We have to start showing up with our masks off. Make-up free. Walls down.

We have to be willing to be seen. We have to allow ourselves to be known. It’s unnerving, uncomfortable and at times painful but a thriving community cannot be matched in its’ wonder.

And it starts with you.

Open your heart, your curtains, your door. Let the light in on those cobwebbed corners of your living room. Sit face to face with the steam rising from your cups of coffee. Link fingers, hold hands, wrap your arms around them.

Suddenly, we are one.

One body, one voice, one heart.