The Long Haul

I met Lottie online a couple years ago, and then in real life at a conference last year. We were in a blogging mastermind group together–so fun!

Lottie is a single girl in her mid-twenties who shares her journey of navigating adulthood and making a difference with her story of health and healing. I’ve always been impressed by the way Lottie is intentional with her friendships. How does she navigate authentic friendship?

When you’re in college, being “intentional” with friends isn’t really a thing. Mainly because if you want to hang out with someone, there’s always a friend readily available. And when you’re all in the same season of life, it makes it that much easier to share life together. I think I lived in this naive bubble that it’d be the same after college. But once I graduated and moved down to Kansas City, this bubble of expectation was broken. My friends were moving away (some even across seas) and everyone was transitioning into their next stage of life; marriage, babies, missions, pursuing career goals in far-away cities. I soon realized if I wanted to keep in touch with these friends, I’d have to be way more intentional.

Being intentional, for me, means picking up the phone. Anytime I’m driving (should I be admitting this?) I’m usually on the phone talking to one of my long-distance friends. We text every so often, but there’s nothing quite like actually hearing that person’s voice and catching up on the things distance has forced us to miss. It also means planning trips to that person’s neck of the woods. Even if it’s once a year, it feels like nothing has changed and we’re right back to where we once were.

Investing in friendships can be hard–especially once people move away or start families. But I’ve learned that true, deep-rooted friendships are rare and if you have one, you should hold on to it. Fight for it, even. These are the friends who are going to be around for the long haul and they’re the ones worth investing in.

Lottie is on standing on my right. This is when we first met at a conference last September.

This is part of a series called 31 Days of Authentic Friendship. Click here to see all posts.