Life and Learning on a Life-a-versary

I have friends, and I have friends that I’ve been through tough shit with. My friend Elise is one of the latter, and I believe we’ve both grown tremendously from what we've endured in life together, as well as separately, though I wouldn’t wish her journey on anyone. She does and always will hold a special place in my soul.

I met Elise in 2011, shortly after I began working for a wilderness therapy program in southern Utah. We worked on the same shift, though didn’t often interact, so I only knew of her what others mentioned: she’s nice, a quick thinker, an overachiever, next in line for a promotion, etc. Everyone’s got an opinion, right?

In late 2011, I began working nearly every shift with Elise, and it became a time of painful personal growth for me. Elise is a type-A personality, and she had high standards that I constantly felt I was falling short of. I would take the feedback we routinely gave each other and be overwhelmed by the constructive, completely forgetting the positive. I began to feel inadequate and at times victimize myself to the extent of blaming others - dangerous territory for anyone. Interestingly enough, it became Elise who was always there supporting me and offering helpful tidbits of advice. She would (and still does) make a disconcerting amount of eye contact, I felt self-consciously that she was looking into the depths of my soul.

We slowly became friends, sharing in the joy and stress a wilderness therapy guide lifestyle can bring. After working 8-day stints over multiple months together, I learned Elise was also going through a transitional time, including big life decisions like buying a house, applying to be a field director at our company, etc.

Jump forward another month or so to April 2012. I was headed into the field with Elise and two other guides when our truck rolled, and Elise broke her C7 vertebrae. Read my recollection of that here.

Elise’s life was thrown into a tailspin, as she was no longer able to use her body the way she’d been using it her entire life - first as a dancer, then a yoga instructor, most recently as a wilderness therapy guide. Darkness crept in as she struggled not only with pain and decreased mobility, but less personal independence and direction. She was restricted on what she could lift even after her vertebrae healed, making a wilderness field guide position out of the question. I tried to support her as best I could, visiting and helping when I could and we became closer yet after I was laid off. Thankfully she was able to find meaning and healing as she soul-searched. She talks about her recovery and her experience rediscovering her abilities here.

Elise and I are quite different, though over the years I’ve recognized our friendship isn't built on our differences, it’s built on similarities and our ability to truly see each other as people. Not who we want the other to be, not what they want to us to be, but to really see and be seen. I believe when people stop seeing each other for the true beings they are, or start putting on masks because of their shame of who they aren’t, is where the troubling struggles exist. I have pondered on this often along our walk thus-far, and keep coming to that same conclusion ,which I do my best to carry over to my interactions. I try to see people as individuals, not treat them as objects, and cultivate deeper, meaningful relationships.

Looking back on human relationships in my life, I’m slowly realizing that it’s the people who push and encourage me to be my best that stick in my memory as well as stay in my life. I feel like Elise and my relationship is the epitome of that lesson, and for that I am grateful. Not just grateful for the teachings I’ve had from her or others in my life, but also grateful for the future teachings and getting to experience them.