Girl Scout Gains

I used to be a Girl Scout. Not that I was a good scout—I really wasn’t. If I remember right, I was usually late for meetings, always forgot my dues, looked jankity in my uniform because I was abysmal at arranging the various pieces, and had a tendency to be a bit on the insolent side with our leader. Even in those tender pre-tween years, I don’t know if I ever quite bought into the concept of Girl Scouts.

Regardless, Girl Scouts taught me at least one valuable lesson. It came in the form of this little ditty we used to sing: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” I’ve sung this tune to myself throughout the years (literally! But in my head), to remind myself that it’s okay to make new friends. I know it might seem silly that anyone would need to remind themselves of this—shouldn’t it be straightforward? For me, it hasn’t been. And I’ve often asked myself why this is.

I tend to explain this hesitation to delve into what I consider to be a “true friendship” (which perhaps I shall define in a latter post) with someone else by explaining my roots. I grew up in a town bordered by cornfields (or wheat or milo or soybeans, whatever), where the population vacillated between 650 and 700 people. My graduating class had 16 kids. Eleven of us were together through every year of school—preschool to senior year. Of that group, many of us ran around in diapers together, as our parents were friends. (I was even known to share a pacifier with one special friend.) I watched them learn to read. I watched them hammer balls over the fence playing kicksoccer. I watched them fall in love for the first time, get hurt for the first time; I laughed and cried and loved and lost with all of them. For 18 years.

It’s a special thing to be raised in this way. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But to go out into the world beyond my hometown, where I was expected to pick up and make “friends” with people I’d never met? It was, to say the least, difficult for me. I didn’t think it was going to be this way. I was really good at meeting people, at introducing myself and striking up casual conversation. But I was really bad at taking a casual friendship to the next level. It felt like I couldn’t do that, like no matter how much I liked the person, they would never be a real friend. There wasn’t enough depth. These new people weren’t there when I’d been rejected by my eighth grade crush, they’d never driven with me on a sidewalk, they didn’t pick me first for their spelling baseball team in third grade. They didn’t know me; they couldn’t possibly. And I didn’t know how to let them know me.

Midway through college, I hit my stride. I had what psychologists might call a series of “corrective emotional experiences”—first I (accidentally) let a smaller group of folks know me, and I was surprised and grateful when they accepted me, even when I was real with them. And then I let a larger group of folks know me, when I joined a staff of resident assistants who I lived, worked, and played with. I came to know that friendships with people I’d just met could be just as meaningful—if not more so—as lifelong friendships, just in a different way. And, importantly, I learned that I was at least a somewhat likable person, which I hadn’t believed prior to college (yet I also hadn’t known that I didn’t believe it! See?! Knowing is half the battle.).

I still struggle. I still tend to take awhile to move things past superficiality in new friendships. In some situations, this has been a detriment to me. Yet in other ways, it has been a boon, because those friendships that I have taken the risk of moving forward with have been amazing. And because there are relatively few of them, I’ve been able to invest in them a great deal of emotional energy.

In my next posts, I plan to pay homage to both my silver and my gold friends, because they are both irreplaceable parts of my life story, and of me. So thanks, Girl Scouts…I guess you were good for something after all.