friends

There is so much going on in the blogs to think about. Really good conversation. I love it.

I can't get out of my head Angie's post about the basis of friendships. She's talking about authentic friendships that are based on something more than "child raising, cooking, where to get the best snow gear, or how to save money at the grocery store". I can't quite figure out how to respond because I like hearing about the day to day of how everyone is managing. I like to know how other people are responding to the same challenges I am. Or hearing about what it's like to be living in someone else's shoes. I think you can see a lot about people from how they face life's challenges. We get a glimpse of who they are. I see this in some of the photography blogs I follow - pictures of ordinary things that are beautiful in themselves - because I can see the beauty in the everyday.
At the same time, I get what she is saying, we can be so superficial, and I know I have some friends who really listen to what I am saying and know me for who I am, and others who just listen to the words and keep things on the surface.
I am stumbling on my words here, and the thought feels half-formed, but I didn't want to let it go. I read Angie's blog a lot and she talks about ordinary things all the time, and I'm wondering what a friendship would look like without that.... what if every conversation was only about "deep" stuff? I think that would feel superficial, too.
In fact, now that I think about this, I know someone like that, and it feels like we have nothing in common, even though we really, really do, and it's an awful lot of work any time we converse. Sometimes I feel like I'm not good enough when I talk to her about how our life is going because I can't tie it all back to some underlying life-theme. I've learned to be guarded about what I say because I might be asked to delve deeper. I even tried to talk to her about it once and she didn't get it. She didn't see any importance in talking about day to day life. Darn it, I give up!