Making Friends Is Exhausting

I’m going to be real. Making friends is exhausting.

I want to skip the beginning part of getting to know someone and jump straight to the best friends for life part.  To the pour your heart out while you sip coffee on your couch at 2 in the morning part.

Ok, that may be an exaggeration. Everyone knows I don’t drink coffee and that I’m secretly 87 years old and definitely wouldn’t be awake at 2 in the morning. If I could manage to still feel like I was in my 20’s and have a 9 o’clock bed time I would.

So, maybe I don’t want that exact reality but you know what I mean.

I want the heart to hearts that go deep, none of that surface stuff. I want the ridiculous, running around the house squawking like a bird because it’s past my 9 o’clock bed time and we’re delirious fun. I want the feel like you’re a 12 year old girl while you talk about your crush on the couch friendship. (What? I’m a missionary,  not dead)

The hop in your car ……wait….I live in Japan. No car. More like the walk 30 minutes down the hill, and hop on a train to find an adventure friend. Someone who will obsess over fall with me, do endless baking, while watching Casper, and Hocus Pocus. The do absolutely nothing and still have a great time friend.

The reality right now is I don’t have that and sometimes it’s hard.

I’ve gotten used to doing it by myself, and honestly it gets lonely. I still laugh. All. The. Time. In fact just today I took 850 selfies and laughed for a good two hours while doing it. I baked pumpkin biscuits and made mashed potatoes and practically snorted all of the nutmeg and cinnamon because it smelled like home. I went to a conference, studied dissociative personality disorder, learned Japanese and painted my nails.  It was a good day but I missed having people to do it with.

After a day that would have been ideal at any other point, I was a sobbing mess.

I found myself curled up in my blankets wishing for someone who really knew me to come walking in the door. Who would accept my blubbering tears and over dramatic slow motion replay of my glorious day. Since I knew that wouldn’t happen I popped in my ear phones and called the first person I could think of.

It’s been a weird transition and most of the time I love it but sometimes I get lonely. That’s when I call, skype, text or smoke signal my best friends back home. I unload every last detail on them no matter how insane I sound and they take it all in. They know me so well. I have never been more grateful for a group of people in my life.

In these last couple of months they have skyped with me while I cried, when I couldn’t do anything but rave about everything happening here and when I just needed to completely weird out.  I have listened to them as life has side swiped them and left them weeping messes and when joyful new seasons have begun.

These women have been with me through more then I ever thought possible. Life has flipped us around, uprooted us, changed all of our plans and yet we are still here. Half a world away they have been just the life and community I have needed.

I have spent weeks praying for a woman to come along who I could be myself with and to just have fun. I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed. I didn’t stop to think that God had answered it a long time ago. They may not be in person but these women have been a community that has stood the test of time, location, and trials. Through their friendships I have felt loved, known, cared for and encouraged. We laugh more then I know what to do with and I know my heart is fully seen.

I’m settling into life here, and as everything comes together I am so grateful that no matter how far away they are, I am absolutely not alone. And plus side they get to hear all about the wonderful blunders of my awkward encounters with new people. Win win.