On Friendship And Being Brave

Okay, confession time.... I am a shy person. A wall-flower extraordinaire. This is a slight contradiction with the rest of my personality seeing as how I am a total control freak and I love to talk. A lot. But it's the honest-to-goodness truth.

Hi my name is Casey and I am shy. (I am also a Starbucks addict, which is worse?!)

Being immersed in large groups of people makes my palms sweat, my ears clog and my vision get a bit unfocused. It's not that I am afraid of being around people, it is just that I am not good at small talk. I love to talk, yet small talk is hard for me.

Making friends has been difficult because of this. I have had people tell me that I appear stuck-up, or aloof, when in reality I am just terrified. I don't mean to seem indifferent. Sometimes I just have a hard time engaging.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

I thought being a mom would help. In some ways it has been, as talking about kids is a good connecting point. But if I am honest with myself, beyond motherhood, it is hard to find common ground.

I have been self analyzing a lot lately. This can be a scary thing to do, but I have come to a few conclusions.

1) My self doubt projects to those around me. Either I doubt them or they doubt me.

2) My self doubt causes me to compare myself to others and then I doubt myself more. A vicious cycle emerges.

3) Regardless of what I want to call it, this shyness I have is based in fear. God is not the author of fear.

4) In order to embrace true friendship I have to get over myself. It can be hard to overcome fear and past hurts, but I have to get over it and move on.

So, I am challenging myself to do this. To get over myself. To leave the self doubt behind. To embrace people (myself included) for who they are. To love unconditionally, even if its awkward. I don't think it is going to be as easy to do as it is to type!

My name means "brave", and so I must be if I desire to have deep and meaningful friendships in my life.

a piece of meat and a cheap thrill

Ever had the type of friend who you laugh with until your sides ache, tears stream down your face and snot blows out your nose? (When something is really funny this can happen and it's just a normal bodily function.)

Anyway, you know the type that you are completely yourself with? The friend who you couldn't have made it through Jr. High without? Whose home is your second home and whose family is your adopted family?

I have a friend like this. Let's call her A Cheap Thrill, or CT for short.

CT and I met under very odd circumstances. The memory is vauge, but I know we were both at some youth group function for the first time and neither of us knew anyone else around. We quickly latched on to each other and ended up exploring this big house we were in. I have no memory of why we were in said large house, but I do remember finding lots of closets and bathrooms.

After that our friendship grew quickly.

We spent time in Dillards trying on prom dresses and taking polaroid pictures, just for fun.

Running UP the DOWN escalator, just for fun.

Hanging upside down of car windows (the cars weren't moving), just for fun.

Playing a lot, and I do mean A LOT of spades with some boys we thought were cute at the time. (What were their names again?!?!)

CT is 3 years older than I am, however I have always been slightly, um, larger boned than her. We were sort of an odd pair growning up. She was dainty (unless she was cramming huge blueberry muffins into her mouth) and I was a tom-boy. She had long red hair, I had short dark brown hair. I wore glasses, she did not. I talked a lot, she was a good listener.

I learned a lot from CT. But the one that sticks out the most is this... she taught me how to clean. Seriously, she was ALWAYS cleaning her room. Like at 2 o'clock in the morning she would whip out the vacumm cleaner and start Hoovering away. Never mind that the rest of her family was sleeping.

(CT is probably cringing right now that out of all the things she hoped to have taught me, I retained the cleaning bit most of all!)

Seriously though, I have some great memories with this girl. The laughing memories, well, those are the best.

Life, and long distances, have kept us apart of many years now. But, still there is no one who knows me better than her.

CT, I miss laughing with you, too. :)

Weekend Recap

Ever had one of those weekends that just flew by way too fast, you got nothing productive or fun done and woke up Monday morning more exhausted than you were on Friday when you got out of work? Well this weekend was the exact opposite for us. We had an awesome weekend and there wasn't much to it...

Friday: we had a lovely dinner at Outback (inspite of a waitress from the twighlight zone who got a big fat zero for tip) and a movie in with friends. (Red Eye- don't bother watching it, it was so blah.)

Saturday: was sleeping in, errands and shopping (we got new lamps for the living room), a yummy home cooked Taco Salad, and great spontaneous converstaion with great friends.

Sunday: we played hookie from church, painted red polka dots on our prayer room wall, went for a long walk with Miss Mads, got soaked while giving Miss Mads a bath because she pounced in every mud puddle she could find on our long walk, ate another great home cooked meal (Beef w. Broccoli), and watched the Super Bowl. (Side note about the Super Bowl... did anyone else see the play in the 3rd quarter where the rather large Seahawks defensive tackle was running and pulled a hamstring? We keep hitting replay on our satellite dish and seriously, we were rolling on the floor laughing. I know it's mean to laugh because the player was really injured, but it was funny to watch!)

All in all we had a fabulous weekend of doing nothing much. We spent quality time together, and quality time with our friends. We enjoyed the unseasonable warm weather and spent a lot of time laughing... What could be better?