Looking in my Friend's Eyes

Remember when making friends took no more effort than sharing a swing? You are swinging along and a kid about your age comes up and says, “I’ll push you and then you push me, ok?” You say, “OK!” The kid says while pushing you, “Hey. Do you want to be friends?” You say, “Yes” and they say, “Yea!” Boom. You’re friends!

You didn’t care what nationality or religion they were. You didn’t care what color their skin was or how much money their parents made. You didn’t care where they were from or what they had done in their previous 6 years of life. You didn’t care what their stance was on abortion or gun rights. It’s just not at the forefront of your mind when you’re looking in your friend’s eyes. You were just friends. This is how I saw it through 6-year-old eyes.

I was thinking about this because I’ve been seeing so many, “delete me if you don’t agree” posts and I thought to myself, how wonderful it must be to have so many true friends that you can cast some aside if they don’t agree with you. I know for me, if my friends don’t agree with me on things that are truly important, I might discuss it or maybe I’d pass it by knowing all of the other things that made my friend meaningful to me, but I would not “delete” them from my life. This is what I see through 52-year-old eyes.

Then, I drove to the beach with one of my favorite friends. She’s my 83-year-old neighbor and I asked her what she thought about everything going on in the world and the friendship issue. She said, and I’m paraphrasing, at my age, you don’t pay it much mind. It’s not that it’s not important, but most of my friends have passed away or are senile or have some disease they’re dying from. We don’t talk about politics or any of the other things going on. “It’s just not at the forefront of your mind when you’re looking in your friend’s eyes.”

I’ve chosen to look at my friends through 6-year-old eyes and 83-year-old eyes, because I don’t much agree with the 52-year-old (or 22, 32, or 42 for that matter) version of friendship. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life or a gun owner or a nobody-needs-to-have-them person, I don’t care. Your views may not align with mine, but I don’t remember some waiver clause in the friendship deal saying we’d only be friends if we agree on every single thing in our lives. I made a friend when I was 6 and she’s still one of my best friends today. We’ve disagreed before in our lives and probably would now on the hot topics, but it’s just not at the forefront of my mind when I’m looking in my friend’s eyes. Is it at yours?