Sarah lived down the hall from me, was roommates with one of the more outgoing girls in my Freshmen bible study, and of the four roommates, she seemed like the mellowest. I didn't get to talk to her much, but would run across her because she worked at the hall desk where my mail was delivered and they sold Twix, my vice of choice. I never really got to know her in those chance encounters, then one night, while transiting between buildings via a basement walkway just wide enough for people to walk single file, tucked in a stairway just in the periphery of my vision I saw a figure. It being the middle of the night I was startled, but I tried to keep my cool and not flake out in horror. I did a double take, and realized there was a girl sitting in that stairwell, which lead to a fire exit from the basement walkway, crying. It was Sarah.
I asked her if she was okay? She wasn't (obviously). In so many words her heart was breaking, because she'd been let down by a young man. It was an incredibly vulnerable situation for her, but she'd known me well enough, and of me, through her roommate, to not feel threatened in confiding in me at that moment, and what did it matter, who was I going to tell? Regardless, we had a talk, and I'm sure I talked to her about my unrequited crushes to show solidarity and empathy. I was averaging one denied infatuation every two months. It was a tough adjustment, being in a college with 1000s of young women, instead of a apartment complex with maybe 4 girls near my age, and a high school with a couple of hundred, so many I'd known long enough to turn them off beyond repair. Anyway, after that night we were more apt to have conversations when I ran into her at the Hall Desk, or she ventured out with her Roommate who attended my Bible Study ( who would join us and confide in us about her own heartaches ).
At this point, Sarah, having heard me wax poetic about my life trapped in the Friend Zone, in the midst of me explain how it happens, my drift from friend to attached emotionally, looked me square in the face and said, "Will, don't get any ideas." It was about as straight forward and sincere as can be, with nothing but honest directness. It didn't feel like a put down or rejection at all. She just made it clear, we were friends, and for me it was exactly what I apparently needed and wanted. For her honesty she became one of the favorite friends I made that year, because she was just an honest good soul, and shared her heart and mind in kind. I found myself wishing more girls I knew were like that, rather than being afraid to hurt a guy's feelings, or uncertain about their own due to their own self-esteem issues or co-dependent tendencies. You know, maybe some people didn't feel they needed to say it? Fair enough, but I'd say those girls were fooling themselves or didn't want to own up to having their own reasons for feeding the ambiguity.
Sarah was awesome in my book, someone I wished more young women were like, and still do to this day. We eventually fell out of touch, which was pretty common for most of the college friends I got to know through mutual grief. I figure it was just a part of moving on from the pasts that were hurt by and grew wiser from. On the one or two random occasions where we crossed paths later in life*, she seemed like the same, mature and empathetic person she was then. That's what I appreciated about her that so many of my peers seemed to lack. She had her head on straight, and was sort of grown in ways none of use weren't. She was self-assured, which was a very valuable and admirable trait to impressionable kids new to college and life out on their own surrounded by thousands of equally impressionable peers.
Here I am in my mid to late 30s, working with people of various ages, but all of us Older than Sarah and I were back then, still struggling with directness, honesty, and empathy in regards to where they stand with each other. It just makes me appreciate what Sarah said to me all the more. She listened well enough to know I was weak, and needed boundaries established. Doing so liberated me from trying to interpret where they were. Few others got that. Few still do. Stop being afraid to define your terms. You miss out on the beauty of true friendship, and ultimately true love, as a result. A person with strong boundaries can be trusted, will have their boundaries respected. That's sort of person that's the marrying kind, because they will let you know when you're welcome to give your all as well, and that's the kind of acceptance we live for, are willing to die beside, like Sarah said...
* I'm thinking she was a nurse at MO Baptist when my father was admitted there in the late 90s, which she mentioned when we'd ran into each other at a Quicktrip in Columbia MO??? For her to be in Nursing really brings adds a thread of synchronicity to this post I didn't expect. What else is new?
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