TBK (To Be Known)
song of the week: “God’s Chariots” by Oklou
This entry is kind of a rollercoaster as I’ve been trying to analyze my own thoughts this week, so buckle up.
As part of my preparations to leave back to Boston next week, I’ve been trying to see as many LA friends as possible before I do. After seeing so many of my lovely friends, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have such profound women in my life. Each one of these amazing girls are so educated and emotionally intelligent. They are strong and fearless when it comes to expressing their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. They are compassionate, kind, mature, and funny, just to continue naming some of the incredible qualities that each of them posses. Sometimes I feel like there aren’t enough words to capture their beauty, and worth as young women in today’s world. We laugh together, cry together, and squeal together. We hug each other, cuddle each other and sometimes we even hold hands while walking. There is a closeness of another level. An intimacy comparable to a romance, yet completely platonic.
When facetiming my friend Maia this week, we talked a lot about how excited we are to go back to school and to see each other, but also about things that were annoying us lately, including our own friends. Maybe summer was too long and we had spent too much time with them. Maybe we were just different people after our first year of college. I was feeling ready for this break to be over. Ready to go back to the new life I built. But then Maia told me something that her mom had told her, “I think that sometimes you get annoyed with your friends not because you dislike them but because they know you so well”.
This statement really struck me. I took a pause after she said that, in which I literally said “Wait, pause. I need to sit on that for a sec”. I think there is a lot of merit to what Maia’s mom had to say. I realized that for me at least, that statement holds true a lot of the time. I know exactly what it feels like to be annoyed by a friend because they already know everything about you. They’ve heard all your stories, they know how you’re gonna react to something, and could probably recognize every item of clothing you have in your closet. They know your perfect birthday gift, they know when you’re zoning out or in ADHD mode based on the face you’re making, and they know all your flaws and why you do them.
One of my biggest flaws is telling white lies sometimes. I say I spent less than I did on a pair of pants because I’m embarrassed about my shopping habits. I make it seem like making out with that random guy at that party was more enjoyable then it was so I don’t get pity or patronized. They know I don’t mean to lie, and they know that I don’t like doing it, but it’s a self defense mechanism and habits are hard to break.
Sometimes being surrounded by good people who know you well can feel a little suffocating, which seems paradoxical. It begins to feel like they know you too well. You can no longer get away with telling them you’re fine, or that you’re not upset over something when you really are. You can’t bullshit them. Eventually it’s not just your temperament or preferences that they learn to decode. Eventually they learn to tell when you’re telling white lies too.
Although I am super familiar with this feeling that Maia’s mom talked about, it also really got me thinking about the other side of her idea.
There’s something very special about getting to know someone, and them getting to know you in return, which should not be easily forgotten. I know this might seem like a weird statement because we often get to know people all the time by introducing ourselves and by talking to them, but I think there’s a big difference between knowing someone and seeing someone for who they are. We get to know people all the time, by learning their names, or where they’re from, or their favorite color, but that isn’t really knowing them for who they are. It’s those deep, intrapersonal conversations and the moments when nobody’s around except the two of you, that really help you get to know somebody. It’s meeting their family, visiting their hometown, or their apartment, or sitting in the passenger seat while they drive. It’s sleeping next to them, going out to eat with them, and being your most authentic self with them.
It’s from these things that we learn a person’s little quirks, habits, body language, behaviors and dialect. It’s spending enough time with them so that we begin to see them for who they are, or as much of them that this life can physically allow. I know that we can never truly see the entirety of another person. We can’t be inside of another person’s mind no mater how hard we try. But we can get pretty damn close. If you spent an entire day with me without knowing me beforehand, I feel like you would get a pretty good idea of who I am. You would learn that I yell in my car at the other drivers on the streets of LA, and the kind of music I listen to. You would learn that I’m super loud and expressive while catching up with a friend, usually while having matcha in an overpriced café. You would learn what I’m passionate about, based on how much time I spend working on this blog or playing guitar in my bedroom. You would learn that I have to wear a night-guard every night when I go to sleep because I grind my teeth, and you would see me take my Lexapro with a can of sparking water, because I can’t take pills unless my mouth is distracted by carbonation, or flavor, or anything really.
If I take a look into my own friendships, those that I feel closest to are the people who I feel truly see me, and vice versa. When I stayed with my best friend Sarah’s family this summer, I felt like I was able to fully understand her as a person. It was such an overwhelming feeling, to feel so connected to her, that I actually cried. Sarah, if you’re reading this, know that I love you and would do anything for you. When my best friend Bry (who loves to film-score) showed me videos he filmed of me during school last year, I knew that he saw me fully as a person. He was able to see the beauty in the things about me that I didn’t even know there could be beauty in, like my laugh, or how I can sometimes bite my fingernails when I’m anxious. If you’d like to watch, the video will be linked below :)
I used to think that the only people in my life that truly saw me were some of my best girlfriends. I thought that there was some special connection and closeness that was only possible through female friendships. I thought that maybe it was only women who could truly understand the complexities of me as a person, being a young woman myself. While I do sometimes believe that there are some essential experiences of being a young woman in today’s world that only another woman could understand, my girlfriends aren’t going to always be the only ones who see and understand me. Sure, my best girlfriends are amazing people and they will always feel like my whole world, like my everything, but it doesn’t mean that they have to be. Bry taught me that. My younger brother teaches me that.
I believe that the greatest form of love is to be truly known or seen by someone else. The people that know everything about you, and still want to be around you all the time are the people that love you the most. To know a person’s faults and to still love them is real love. It’s something I wish I didn’t forget so much. Rather than being annoyed by the people I’m constantly surrounded by, maybe I should be a little grateful that I have them in my life, and that they still want to be around me, even though I’m a hell of a lot of a human being, and even though I tell a little white lie every so often. I’m not saying I shouldn’t ever be annoyed with my friends. Feeling annoyed is a normal feeling, but I do think that sometimes a change of perspective is nice, or maybe even necessary. Thank’s Maia’s mom!
xo,
gaby!
