Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Mended Friendships with Christy Bauman and Tracy Johnson
259 Plays1 year ago
We've all known the pain of betrayal or hurt in a friendship? But how on earth do you repair? Christy and Tracy delve deep into their own stories of seasons when their friendships needed mending. Bright, winsome, and full of fearful hope, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Red Tent Living Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Tracy Johnson and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary. This season, we tackle the messy truths of friendship. I'm excited for you to join us. Welcome to our table.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hi there! It's Katie, producer of the Red Tent Living podcast, and I get the distinct privilege of introducing our two guests today. One of them you've already met, Tracy Johnson. She's the regular host who I am filling in for.
00:00:38
Speaker
and the other I know you will simply love, Kristi Bauman. Tracy and Kristi go back quite a ways and share their own relationship as dear friends, which makes their conversation about mended friendships particularly tender. I think you can hear the trust and knowing
00:01:01
Speaker
and belief in one another that carries through their conversation. It's a beautiful, messy, fragile look at what it is to be friends, to hurt a friend, and to seek help.
00:01:19
Speaker
repair for that hurt. Tracy and Christy both specialize in sitting with others and listening to their stories, so I hope you enjoy the gift today of them sitting with us. Here's their conversation.
Writing about Mended Friendships
00:01:36
Speaker
Hi, friend. Oh, I'm so happy to see you. It's good to see you. It's been too long. I know.
00:01:43
Speaker
Tell me just a little bit, how was the process for you of writing your story about Mended Friendship? It's such a needed conversation, but it's still so awkward.
00:01:57
Speaker
I have a lot of stories that I could have written and going by your teaching philosophy of like, don't share what just happened. So go back a bit. You know, I shared, I wrote a story that happened, I think six years ago, but I still could feel it. I could feel how tender and how much I desire friendships to be mended.
00:02:26
Speaker
and to make that cross over the painful separation. And so, yeah, I felt tender to this subject. It feels close to my heart and it also feels like there's a bit of trepidation that the mend will hold deeper than before. Yeah. But even as a grown woman, I also felt like I don't often feel so vulnerable to an idea
00:02:54
Speaker
But my need and desire for friendship and for strong friendship felt, I felt young again, as I wrote. Even though I wrote a piece that happened six years ago, I still felt how awkward and clumsy and
00:03:09
Speaker
chunky it all felt and it turned out well for me in this situation but I know from experience it doesn't always turn out well and there's a vulnerability around the idea of mending a friendship and there's a power that I really I want to know how to hone into. So I have this huge sense of relief hearing you say that because it felt for me surprisingly difficult. How about I go first and you go second this time? How's that sound?
00:03:38
Speaker
I love it. I am surrounded by delayed travelers. The bearded older gentleman across from me doesn't know that playing Rosanna by Toto on his laptop without headphones is bad airport etiquette.
Emotional Complexity of Mending Friendships
00:03:53
Speaker
The two women next to him are dishing about another woman who I am sure thinks of them as her friends. She's just so much work right now. I'm so glad she's not with us for our girls weekend. I feel myself cringe a bit because I know that conversation well.
00:04:09
Speaker
I feel shame about the reality that I have been one of the women who has felt that way about someone. And I have also been the one others didn't want to have come along. Friendship is a complex thing and my body knows it. Hilary McBride says, we cannot distance ourselves from what is painful without also disconnecting from what makes us feel joy, pleasure, and vitality.
00:04:34
Speaker
Feeling it all is how we feel alive, and all of that happens in and through our bodies. I have both mended and un-mendable friendships, and I feel resistant to feeling all of my feelings around mended friendship. The resistance has left me dull inside, flattened out, challenged for words, stomach churning a bit. As I think of just telling a story about a friend that I have mended with,
00:05:01
Speaker
The faces of those that remain strained, tattered, or simply broken come to my mind also. I Googled mended friendship and my screen populated with images and stories about Kitsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery. I sat with a friend last night trying to find the words for my feelings and my resistance. Mended friendship doesn't feel like the beauty of Kitsugi to me.
00:05:26
Speaker
The shards and pieces becoming stronger because they are held together by gold sounds lovely, but doesn't feel like what I've experienced. I've lived long enough to have walked through a lot of seasons of friendship. I have felt the joy of deep heart connections, the kind that leave you using words like forever friend and soul sister, best friend, practically family.
00:05:50
Speaker
And I have felt the change of seasons when what was once held close and dear shifts and the friendship becomes distanced, strained. Sometimes those friendships have been mended, the stretched or torn pieces between our hearts repaired, and other times the tearing has felt un-mendable. Trying to write about my feelings when mending hasn't been possible leaves me wanting to dissociate. I check my email. I think of something I need to order from Amazon. I scroll Instagram.
00:06:20
Speaker
Truthfully getting ready for this episode has felt remarkably hard for me. If I only think of what I believe caused the tearing, I can make my way into some contempt and disdain, which works out well to shut down my heart and deaden me. Holding the good memories with joy and blessing, along with feeling the pain of whatever caused the unrepairable breach or loss
00:06:45
Speaker
brings shame, grief, sadness, and leaves me acutely alive.
Trust and Responsibility in Friendship Repair
00:06:51
Speaker
If I think about the joy, I feel flooded. Joy, sadness, grief, all of it churning together. This choice requires that I face my feelings of shame and respond to my own vulnerability with kindness, which in the wake of failed friendship can feel so hard to find.
00:07:09
Speaker
My mended friendships often feel tender to me and at times tenuous, like they must be held very carefully. I find that I'm less likely to press down hard on a mended friendship. I struggle to trust the repair. I worry that I will do something or say something that might reopen the breach and expose an unhealed wound. I want to avoid the risk of that, which makes it difficult for the mended friendships to grow deep. As I write, I notice how responsible I feel.
00:07:39
Speaker
responsible for any tear or breach, responsible to try and make the repair, responsible to tend carefully if mending does happen, responsible if mending isn't possible. As I sit here over my shoulder sits a rag doll. Underneath her faded flower dress written on her soft cotton body are the words, I got this doll when I was eight years old, and I signed my name next to it. Her arm is missing.
00:08:07
Speaker
I tried sewing it back on more than once, and eventually when the mending wouldn't hold, I stopped trying. My very first rag doll I named Friend, and I have a picture of me holding her when I'm just two years old, remembering that I named her Friend always makes me smile because I love my little self, naming her doll Friend. My friendships feel precious to me and remaining fully alive to all I have known in the realm of friendship feels vulnerable
00:08:35
Speaker
tender, risky, full of joy and full of sadness. I can feel the younger parts of me easily accessible when I choose to stay present to it all. I not only love the way you write, I love the way I feel like I'm with a friend, like with a friend inside of my mind, hearing all of my feelings and thoughts.
00:09:02
Speaker
It's as if I don't have to work to articulate and hope that someone understands. And Tracy, I'm so grateful for the gift of how you risk, just because I feel a little bit less alone and I feel more known. And what you said is so true, all of it. And how sweet your little self naming your ragdoll friend. Oh, because I have
00:09:29
Speaker
like known some of that messy friendship space. You know, I look back and think, gosh, from the time I was tiny too, when I could first begin to name something, there was some ache inside of me for a friend. And I so wanted to just have some clean, inspiring, hopeful story about mended friendship.
00:10:00
Speaker
to write about. Yes. And it's not that I don't have some sweet mended friendships. I do. I just noticed that story, the simplicity of that just was not coming with any integrity. I was having to like close off something in order to kind of choose to just stay in some hopeful mended story. Right. Right. Yeah. And I couldn't do it.
00:10:30
Speaker
So like I said, when we came on, I felt so much relief when you said it had felt tender. I was like, oh my gosh. OK, good. I'm not alone.
00:10:40
Speaker
Well, and you putting words to the idea of, I don't want to put pressure. Sometimes I feel nervous to put pressure on amended friendship, on that suture that's maybe even been there or that scar. And it just shows that it continues to be a place of vulnerability, right? Like even friends that you have mended from years past, I think
00:11:05
Speaker
There's just that longing of like, will you be forever? Will you give me those words? And even if I have those words, I don't fully trust them anymore. Not anymore. And I hate that, you know? And I think those are the ones that feel acute and not every friendship that I would have put those words around ended in some sort of brokenness. Some of them are just like time and
00:11:33
Speaker
And maybe we moved or maybe they moved or, you know, and so it's not some ugly breach. It just came to a close.
Pain of Unrepairable Friendships
00:11:43
Speaker
But then there are others that like could not be mended or something happened that then it's like, Oh, that's just so painful. Yeah. It's haunting even it's haunting and it's, it's a bit devastating.
00:12:02
Speaker
And I think I keep myself on the edge of it. That's just a place I don't want to dive back into. And when you talk about friendships that have successfully mended, there's still that ache of and the echo of those that didn't. Yeah, we don't talk about it because I think it's so hard to talk about those and to hold some posture of kindness and generosity for myself and
00:12:33
Speaker
for the other and not sort of get mired down in wanting to blame or take too much responsibility or explain. I think the shame we feel and to be able to like just bring my face and go, I have un-mended friendships, places that couldn't be fixed and it just is.
00:12:57
Speaker
There is something about this art of rebuilding and bringing back together after something's been broken and even this idea of putting something back and making it more beautiful with all the beautiful with all the glue in it. There's a strength and a fragility that's held in that coming back in the art of just recurating something that is both like moves towards my hope and my happiness and my gratitude and also
00:13:24
Speaker
my sadness or my fear. We have this energy inside of us that wants some sort of happily ever after or we had this breach, but it's even better than it was before. That's this arc of the story. It's like we want to decide how we're going to write the resurrection story instead of waiting for whatever
00:13:51
Speaker
resurrection or redemption, waiting for what it's going to look like to unfold, being a participant, but not being the author of
Personal Experiences and Forgiveness
00:13:59
Speaker
it. Yeah. I'm drawn back to the beginning of the story where you're sitting in the airport listening to two people say, she's really hard right now. And I have been in that situation. I have been the one saying that I have been the one that people are saying that about. I've felt all of those moments and
00:14:19
Speaker
You're right, it is so hard to just sit back and just be in that moment and hold maybe the humility and shame of being the person gossiping about the other. It's hard to be in the isolation and loneliness about the person who's being the one who's hard to be with.
00:14:40
Speaker
There's so much, and even the one who's listening and hearing that being talked about, I've known what it's been to be in all of those places. We are. And difficult to stay in that place. Yeah. And to feel something.
00:14:54
Speaker
Like to stay in that place and to allow my heart to actually feel the reality of all those things. I've been that person saying that. I've been that person not being wanted because I'm feeling like too much. And I've been an observer or bystander in the conversation.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I don't feel good about any of those. Right. I don't want to be in that. I would love to just stay in the best friends and there's never a ruptured friend, the complicated friend, the mended friendship. I just want to stay in the good. We want Instagram friendships, right? Totally. It's curated and it looks so beautiful and we're all just having the best time. Oh, yeah. All right. Do you want to share your story? I'm ready. Okay, let's do it. Look at me in the eye, Christy.
00:15:45
Speaker
I feel the shame keeping me from holding Mel's eyes. We've been sitting in the coffee shop for over an hour on an early winter, rainy morning. I was pregnant, emotional, but more than that, I had never been through this kind of forgiveness moment with a friend. Sometimes forgiveness feels awkward at best. A small group of my church friends were planning a backpacking trip across the enchantments the month before.
00:16:11
Speaker
I told myself it was not because I was pregnant that I wasn't invited, but I wasn't entirely sure. Mel had shared with me that they weren't asking many people. She knew others would feel left out, one woman in particular. I think it was implied that I should not tell anyone, but then inevitably I shared the information. I'm not proud of that moment. I could probably even justify the reason I believe telling was okay. If I'm honest, I felt left out.
00:16:39
Speaker
I didn't get invited on the trip. I wanted to commiserate with others who were not invited. I've never liked leaving anyone out. Even the healthiest of boundaries between relationships seems so cruel to me at times. Nevertheless, they went on the trip. I imagined all the conversations and memories I was missing out on while they spent hours together in a magical place. The inner headspace can be dangerous to brew when one is feeling left out.
00:17:07
Speaker
shame, self-loathing, and gossip became a way that I coped. When my friends returned, they ensured the disappointment of all of the ones left behind. It was an awkward few months as we navigated our way through repair, but my friend Mel was frustrated with me. I shared her words with others. She told me in confidence. So here we were after strained playdates with our kids, and we set alarms early to meet one morning.
00:17:35
Speaker
Walking to the coffee shop, I felt knots in my stomach. I'm a grown woman, but in friendship, I am sometimes so young. We fumble through the niceties while ordering coffee, and then I sit down. Mel's direct. She's more versed in apologies and reconciliation than I am. Christy, you were wrong. And all you have to do is look me in the eye and tell me that you're really sorry. And I'll forgive you, but that is if you are really sorry.
00:18:05
Speaker
I appreciated her coaching and finding her eyes. They are hurt, but she's understanding. I am really sorry. I apologize. And she holds my gaze and she says, I forgive you. It's that simple. Those three words, but they're not simple at all. I don't know if I believe them. So I have to just stare in her eyes until I know that she means it. At least for this moment, I can hold on.
00:18:35
Speaker
It may seem so simple to hear this story as if navigating friendship isn't so difficult as I make it sound. Yet for me, an adult female woman, I have referred to that moment many times in my mind. The power of forgiveness that mends us back together. I'm so thankful for that moment, that gift of repair that she gave me and the friendship that continued on after. Ugh.
00:19:01
Speaker
The way that you wrote that, the moment that sort of grabbed me was when you said you weren't familiar with that kind of a forgiveness moment. I was like, oh, and I found myself like, who's doing the forgiving? You were so exquisitely honest. The left out feelings, the way you described the brewing in your head. After feeling left out, I was like, oh yeah, I know that space.
00:19:30
Speaker
and how young I got and how much I do not want to let people in to know that that's how young and insecure I get in those moments. And then I literally fed into it. Like I reacted and moved into it fully and I commiserated and I gossiped and it was interesting. I didn't even think about
00:19:52
Speaker
I did think about the other's feelings, but I was- Not in that moment, right? Yeah. I think it feels so justified and you weren't alone, you commiserated, which means there were others that were also brewing in their own heads. And I just, the honesty I think feels refreshing. I don't feel like I'm commiserating with you. I feel like I'm just finding you in the midst of
00:20:23
Speaker
Just the honest truth of how messy it is and unkind and scared. And it makes me so aware of countless stories with my girls that live to this day with their friends, middle school, elementary school. And it's just, it's decades later and so many of the emotions feel just the same. Of course. And that's what is, it almost could take me out in embarrassment of like,
00:20:54
Speaker
I do feel like I'm in elementary or middle school. And what is wrong with me? And yet it felt so holy for her to be so kind in that moment and coach me. She's so bold. She's like, you're wrong. Yeah, so direct.
00:21:13
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. And just willing to just hold herself there. Like you're wrong and this is all you have to do. Yeah. And I believed her because some people, I think you could just say, ask for forgiveness, say you're sorry. And they don't really mean that. I grew up in church. I know how to say I'm sorry and how to forgive someone. And truly, I don't know that forgiveness is always, I think it's forced so often.
00:21:38
Speaker
And I don't know how often it's honestly asked for, but I looked at her eyes and I could see it was clean. It was clean and she wanted repair with me. And I think that when someone wants repair with you after you've disappointed them, done them wrong, so to speak, it's just so kind. It's such a gift.
00:22:04
Speaker
And she could have easily gone and bad-mouthed me or talked about anything. And yet she wanted relationship enough that she's willing to be with me in my youngness. And she still loved me and was okay with that. And I just, my gratitude, I think, in that moment. Her staying very solid and very kind gave you her eyes to find. And that young place in me, she didn't dismiss. She wanted to be with.
00:22:33
Speaker
And she also wasn't going to coddle or take responsibility for something that wasn't her responsibility. Yeah. And it did feel really clean. And what I had to fight with was even once she left and forgave me, it was to believe her and to trust. And that was hard and to not turn on myself. Right. Oh yeah. I get that. Yeah. So that wasn't fun. But I also just came back to remembering her eyes.
00:23:01
Speaker
And my apology was earnest and her forgiveness was earnest. And something about that was quite a strong suture. Although for her and from her perspective, there wasn't harm or wrong that was intended. And yet I think there was a forgiving that had to happen from your end too. Yeah. Forgiving for not choosing me and for being honest and for leaving me out and also
00:23:31
Speaker
You know, there's that part of you that's grateful when a friend trusts you that much of like, Hey, I'm going to be honest. I want to do something. And you're in a sense that not, I don't want you there, but it would not work for me for you to be there. That's not what I want. And I had to forgive her for that. And that's okay. I want to be that person. And I can, we can feel how it gets. It's not clean. And I think that you brought up sort of the church forgiveness conversation.
00:24:02
Speaker
And I think we get really stuck and it's like what I did wrong, what you did wrong, this exchange. And part of what I noticed in your story is that while the forgiveness had some reciprocity, that wasn't actually part of the conversation. Mel wasn't asking for your forgiveness. And yet for the men to happen, there was something inside of you that had to release
00:24:30
Speaker
the harm that you felt, even though she didn't do something wrong.
Challenges of Displaying Mended Friendships
00:24:35
Speaker
Exactly. I think that mended friendship feels messy to me and maybe not something we want to put on display. Oh gosh. No, we want to hide it because who likes mess, you know, even if you can make it look beautiful and interesting to look at the cracks and the imperfections are also just really hard to hold.
00:24:59
Speaker
I wonder if there's something good and recognizing that everything that happens in our lives doesn't have to be on display. Our willingness to display it doesn't necessarily evidence the goodness or redemption or restoration. Yeah, sometimes we keep it held deep inside, in our treasure chest somewhere deep inside. Yeah, I love that.
00:25:24
Speaker
It's good to know that there are things that get to be in a treasure chest because they're precious and dear, but they don't belong up on a shelf for everybody to look at. Yeah, it's so true. All right, friend. Well, good to see you today. Always so good to be with you.
00:25:42
Speaker
I have both mended and un-mendable friendships. I knew exactly what Tracy was talking about when she spoke those words. And I loved how Tracy and Christy both admitted that they have been the difficult friend who gets left out, the choosy friend who feels exclusive, and the bystander watching it all happen. Me too. What about you?
00:26:12
Speaker
Are there friendships you need to mend? Are there friendships where you've worked to mend time and again and the mending no longer holds? How might you practice kindness this week, intending to the sutures and scars of your friendships?
00:26:34
Speaker
I know for me, I'm going to walk into this week pondering Tracy's comment to Christy about the ways she needed to forgive Mel for going on that trip without her, even though Mel did nothing wrong. I have scars like that in friendships, ruptures, and
00:26:52
Speaker
places where I've felt left and I haven't known how to be at peace with the hurt. The way Tracy and Christy talked about all of that actually reminded me of my brother. Time and again, I have watched Steve repair strained or distant friendships by re-engaging the distance with a steadfast belief that he is wanted and enjoyed.
00:27:19
Speaker
I always admire the way he re-engages. And I feel Christie's story with Mel showed the same belief. She needed to forgive Mel for her hurt. And she wanted to be that person. Maybe I can do the same. And maybe you can too. Something to think about. Until next week.
00:27:45
Speaker
The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by Katie Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson and our guests are all part of the Red Tent Living community. You can find us all at redtentliving.com as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, we would be thrilled if you left us a review. Until next week, love to you, dear ones.