Long Overdue

June 2009 – Girl’s Camp Year 3

Don’t worry, these conversations are going somewhere.

Monday

Me: “Have you seen those redhead girls before?”
Jen (my best ward friend): “No. But I think they’re in our year.”
Me: “Seriously? They look like they’re twenty! I thought they were junior staffers!”

Tuesday

Me: “So I found out more about the red heads today.”
Jen: “Yeah?”
Me: “They’re twins – Haley and Hannah. And they are SO COOL. I want to be their friends.”
Jen: “Well invite them to do something at our cabin during free time or something.”
Me: “Nah…”

Wednesday

Me: “Seriously. They are so cool. It’s crazy.”
Jen: “Have you even talked to them?”
Me: “No… not directly. They’re too cool.”
Jen: “I bet they don’t think that.”

This continued on for the rest of the week – “Hey Jen! I finally talked to them! But I didn’t really know what to say. They’re just all amazing, so I didn’t really know how to act.” etc.

After camp, it continued on for the rest of the year. I would turn to Jen at any stake activity and say “Man, I want to be their friends.” But I never acted on it.

THEN, it was this year, A-Camp, in which we weren’t separated by wards anymore, and it just so happened that I ended up in a tent with the redhead twins that I wanted to befriend so badly. And let me say this – they are really awesome. Which is exactly the reason why I shouldn’t have worried so much.

On one of the last days of camp, Haley and I were reminiscing about past summers,

Haley: “You know, Hannah and I thought you were awesome last year. We saw you and said to each other, ‘I want to be her friend’ but we were too afraid to talk to you.”

So there you have it, we could’ve been friends this entire year, but we were both too afraid about what that other person thought to do anything about it.

Here, when I wrote ^that^ post, (no, I’m sorry, I never did get around to actually posting it), I thought that I had learned my lesson, I thought I knew that it was easy to make friends and that I shouldn’t really mind what people thought about me.

THEN, I got to high school - a wonderful world of new people and new opportunities constantly presenting themselves all around me. And, once again, I fell in love with the idea of making new friends, especially with all of the dang-super-awesome-cool-amazing-beautiful-magnificent-wonderful-incredible-excellent-marvelous-everyotherpositiveadjectiveyoucanthinkof people that I was meeting. Unfortunately, with that new desire to make friends there also came a new fear – fear that they would think I was dumb and obnoxious, fear that they wouldn’t want to be my friend, and in short, fear of all around rejection.

Every so often, I would get sudden bouts of confidence; I forgot about my self-conscious and self-absorbed ways, and remembered for a moment that people didn’t really care and I didn’t need to worry. However, the bursts of confidence always inevitably came to an end and I went back to what I do best – over-analyzing and worrying about everything anyone ever said or did.

Then I received sage advice from a wise friend (ahem, ahem, MACEY!)

“Listen, Sarah. You don’t need to worry so much. Friendships happen because they happen – I’m sure that they want to be friends with you just as much as you want to be friends with them.”

And it’s true. Friendships do have a way of happening naturally. We (me) don’t need to be concerned with other’s opinion of us because…

#1 – Ninety-nine percent of people we meet are so worried about themselves and what other people think of them that they don’t have time to think much about us.

Something I often forget is that EVERYONE has these same fears of rejection. Some may more than others, but everyone has the same doubts and reservations that we do.

#2 – And more importantly, the old adage rings true that “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

Chances are, if we think someone is awesome and we want to be friends with them, they feel the same way about us. AND, the very fact that they are such good people ensures that they are not the kind of person who will judge us or think ill of our intentions because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind!

I had absolutely no reason to worry about Haley and Hannah’s opinion of me because they were feeling the exact same way.

And really, if someone does happen to think differently, it still doesn’t matter because D&C 3:7 reminds us “You should not have feared man more than God.” because Heavenly Father’s opinion of us is the only one that matters at all anyway.

So the moral of this rambling post is that we don’t need to worry. If we love life and love everyone around us, we will be surrounded by sincere friends who love us no matter what and we won’t ever have to worry about what anyone thinks about us again.

I just hope this time it sticks a little longer than before…