Kapachino

Lopsided Friendship

I have a friend. I met her in an interesting way that is most uncharacteristic for me. When I graduated from college the first time and moved back to Houston I was working at a cancer clinic doing medical records. I had this job for two years before I entered nursing school. One of the nurses at the clinic was my friend’s mother. Her mother and I became close, and I really looked up to her as a role model for many different reasons. She would talk about her daughter from time to time and eventually I thought I might like to be friends with her daughter too.

I wasn’t sure how to make the friendship happen, but there finally came an opportunity to meet in a somewhat non-threatening manner. My roommates and I were planning on attending a Beth Moore conference at the time, so I decided to invite her. I actually just called her out of the blue (luckily her mom had told her about me), we talked for a bit, and she agreed to come. We met and were able to talk easily, and since then we have made an extreme effort to stay in touch. We don’t have any of the same friends, so it is difficult. But for a few years now, we have been meeting almost every week to have dinner together.

We are entirely different people. She is charismatic, and I am not. Charismatic in the spiritual sense of the word mainly. I have stories. I know her well now, and I believe our hearts are in the same place, but if I had known all of this about her in the beginning I would have thought, “I’m sure she’s a wonderful person, but just not the type I can be friends with.”

I love my friend deeply, but it’s almost as if she occupies just this one little corner of my life, cut off from everything else. I have been talking to her about my wedding this whole year, and I was extremely happy for her when she got engaged a month ago. Since then I have loved talking to her about her own wedding planning. I thought we had an understanding, that we are two very different people who have decided to make a friendship last despite our worlds being so separated. I thought that we could always talk to each other but that in the end, we were peripheral friends. I expected that when she moves next year, that we would possibly fall out of touch.

I was speechless tonight when she asked me to be her maid of honor.

I was flattered, honored, overwhelmed, speechless, but mostly I felt guilt. That she’s not even a bridesmaid for me. And when I said yes, she just squealed with delight, said I had made her day, that she was telling her fiance the other day just how much she liked me even though we are so different.

I guess all I can do is continue to make a conscious effort to maintain our friendship, and be the best maid of honor I can be .