Thursday, January 8, 2015

Life and Love Lessons: Your First Soul Sister

Cabin fun on the Ice
I would assume that most women can remember their first BFF.  For me, it was Sandy Allison... We were in first grade together. We walked home together every day after school, and I remember telling her that she was my best friend. Yet, I don't remember much after that. We lost contact and I don't believe I ever saw her again.

I believe that is common for girls. Especially for those of us who make friends easily... we meet someone, we decide we like them and want to spend time with them. Then maybe we move, change schools, or classrooms and lose contact.

Do you remember, that first true soul sister...? The friend that you made, that stayed your friend even after all that usually changed things. Maybe you changed schools, but stayed in touch regularly.... I do.

I am seeing this happen with my youngest daughter, Skye, and I am in awe.  Skye is in tenth grade and has been attending school in our small town since second grade. So, for the most part, she has attended school with the same group of kids for almost a decade. She has had many girlfriends during that time. She's had a couple best friends, and one of those friendships was one she thought to be a true BFF, yet that friendship ended, and not by her choice. It was her first major loss she'd had in her life, and was very devastating to her. Yet, the friendship that unfolded next was meant to be, she found after her devastation, her soul sister, Maddy.


Skye and Maddy met in third grade, yet didn't develop a friendship until a few years later. Skye was a talker and Maddy was shy, very shy. They started sitting together at lunch when they entered middle school and along with a handful of other girls began attending birthday parties together and hanging out more at school.  A year later Skye invited Maddy to join a recreational dance class with her. You could tell their friendship was beginning to become stronger.

When Skye was in eighth grade, she began struggling a bit emotionally.  She was really having a hard time pin-pointing what the issue was though. It seemed like everything was going wrong. Friendships were changing, her interests were changing and her moods were changing. She began connecting more with new friends that seemed to be going through the same dark time as she was. Some of her older friendships seemed to be slipping away.

During that dark time in her life, she had a couple friends that stuck by her, yet some with judgement... Maddy always being there to spend time with her, without judgement, just acceptance.  I believe that's when Skye came to realize the strong bond that was forming. I still felt though, that she was holding something back. She didn't want to share too much and not be understood or validated. It took a while to really build that trust between the girls.

At the same time, Maddy's mom, Kris and I had become friends ourselves. Initially superficial, chatting while the girls hung out or while they were at dance. Very quickly though, the walls came down, and we began opening up to each other. Like daughters, like mothers, I guess.
Their love of art and Halloween collides

Over the past year, I have watched the girls relationship deepen. They're maturing into young women and their friendship is also maturing. They have their own interests, yet so many of them overlap, it's hard to tell whose is whose.  When I am out shopping with Skye, she's always looking for things that Maddy would like and often will buy something for her, just because she'd like it.

It's become common for the girls to switch weekends staying at each others houses or cabins. Kris and I laugh that it feels like we have joint custody and every other weekend visitation with the girls. They refer to each others parents as Mom and Dad no matter whose house they're at and are completely comfortable getting food from the others house when hungry. When Skye goes more than a couple days without  seeing Maddy, she will complain that she misses her.

I believe that the relationship a girl has with her BFF, her soul sister, teaches her what it's like to be in a committed adult relationship. Trust, honesty.... intimacy even.  Yet, not like that.
Have you ever hosted a sleepover with teenage girls?? Skye has had sleepovers where three girls have fallen asleep on her twin bed, snuggled up. Girls sit too close, giggle, gossip, cuddle and change clothes in front of their friends. That is how we learn honest intimacy.

They are texting all of the time, about everything and nothing. They want to hang out together, not to do anything specific, just to be together. They are protective of each other when it comes to boys especially.  I have heard Skye get angry and rant about how someone disrespected Maddy... I wouldn't have wanted to be that boy getting the wrath of an angry BFF.

As we grow up, we make many friends...some for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime. I believe that first real soul sister is for a reason... to teach us how to care about someone (outside of our family) as much as ourselves, to trust someone fully, to protect someone and to love, unconditionally... this relationship teaches us to accept another person full of imperfections and irritating habits and yet still want them in our lives.


Dance Competition 2014


I also believe that first real soul sister is for a lifetime... maybe not someone we talk to everyday, but someone that we often think of, someone we can call to chat about nothing... and even after five years of not talking, we just pick up where we last were, without missing a beat.