I recently took a trip to the Jersey Shore with a dear friend. No, we didn’t go to that Jersey Shore. We hit the road for a getaway to the seaside town of Cape May: full of bright pastel Victorian homes, pale historic beaches dotted with “Cape May diamonds” (quartz pebbles), and big porches set for afternoon tea. Together, we celebrated my friend’s warmly anticipated entry into her second trimester and toasted our years of friendship — zero-proof style, of course.
A few highlights from our weekend “down the shore” were nature walks, dolphin sightings, and scrumptious seafood. However, I believe the scene I will hold most fondly is from our last evening in Cape May. As the light faded, we found our way into two rocking chairs, side-by-side on the wrap-around veranda of the B&B where we were staying. Creaking in our swaying seats, I remember thinking it was like time had stopped, as we chatted happily about life and watched horse-drawn carriages roll by under the old-world lamplight.
When I think about our friendship, I think about conversations like these. We both like to talk… a lot. Our friendship was forged as we both underwent different seasons of challenge and processed it all together: over wine and too much dessert. Now that my friend has arrived at the threshold of parenthood, I am so delighted that we could salute this next chapter of her life in a place so charmingly conducive to discussing it. Undoubtedly our friendship will change over the coming months. But I will always look back tenderly at that weekend snapshot in time and marvel over how a slow-paced, seaside setting captured the very essence of our friendship so beautifully.
As a single person with only a furry, four-legged dependent, I do sometimes worry about sustaining relationships with my friends as they start families. Major lifestyle shifts are one of the main contributing factors to why even strong friendships can dwindle. After all, pregnancy certainly alters any “girls’ night” happenings. Since I won’t be staying out late sipping cocktails in Philadelphia with certain friends anymore, this means I must be intentional about the deeper reasons for our connection. My prayerful hope is that we will uphold the core reasons why we want to remain in each other’s lives — and that we will always sustain the effort to connect.
In her book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, Anna Goldfarb stresses the importance of recognizing why we have the friendships we do. Goldfarb believes that our friendships are bolstered when we acknowledge the functions our friendships play. She suggests that clarity for our friendships gives us purpose, “establishing a clear and compelling reason why both people seek one another out and continue to put in the work to maintain the friendship.”
Drawing upon the wisdom of friendship researcher Tom Rath, Goldfarb identifies eight types of friendship roles: builders, champions, collaborators, companions, connectors, energizers, mind openers, and navigators. Builders motivate you and coach you up. Champions praise you and talk you up, even when you’re not around. The rest of the categories are pretty self-explanatory. A friend can fit more than one role in your life, and our roles for one another may change as the years progress. I appreciate these identifiers to help better understand my friends, as well as to help name the qualities and characteristics I bring to the table.
To add one further layer of understanding, I like the term David Brooks uses when discussing friendships: “accompaniment.” I value Brooks’ concept because it is not exclusive to any particular type of friendship. It doesn’t matter if you are a “collaborator” friend, or an “energizer” friend. It doesn’t matter what role you have for others, or what role they have for you. Accompaniment is simply how Brooks encourages us to approach people. Brooks says that accompanying someone is about “presence, patience, trust, vulnerability, and putting others before ourselves.” In his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, Brooks writes, “[Accompaniment is] just riding alongside as they experience the ebbs and flows of daily life. You’re there to be of help, a faithful presence, open to whatever may come.”
Accompaniment isn’t reduced to what we can or cannot do. Accompaniment means embracing who we can be for one another. This idea is freeing for me. No matter what season of life my friends are in, my goal is to be the one who accompanies. I can be a companion who sojourns alongside my friend as she approaches and enters motherhood. This might mean I show up when she needs me. When she has a newborn at home, I can stop by with snacks for a night in or offer my babysitting services so she can have a well-deserved break. Or, it may very well mean we traverse through a season of life apart, in which we do not see each other as often but still support each other from afar.
Practicing the art of accompaniment is a mindset. Being one who accompanies requires trust. I cannot force the friendship. Instead, I must prayerfully learn to relinquish control and be content to come along for the ride. I must believe in my heart that because we each play a meaningful role in one another’s lives, we will mutually continue to make one another a priority on into the future. It means letting go and believing that the ebbs and flows of life will eventually lead us back to each other.
Practicing the art of accompaniment is a mindset that requires trust.
According to Goldfarb’s list of friend types, my fellow Jersey traveler and I are “navigator” friends. Navigators are the ones to whom one turns for support in handling life’s twists and turns. I need someone in my life to help me talk through my choices and keep me orienting me toward my core beliefs — and I believe I do this for her as well. We have stood at various crossroads together and supported each other in our decisions. We have joyfully celebrated our successes and dreams together. Now it seems we are standing at another crossroads. It’s a little scary, but, oh what a happy snapshot in time! The memory of the two of us rocking side-by-side on a big Victorian porch in Cape May is the image I will carry with me as I prepare to accompany her into this next exciting chapter of her life.
