Alexis Senge JohnsonEveryone needs that one friend. You know the one I’m talking about. Some call them their “ride or die,” but I call mine the one that “hides the body.” In your younger years they would be your phone call if you were in jail and didn’t want your parents to find out. If you needed someone to hold your hair back as you puked in the bathroom at the bar you knew you could also count on them to get you home safely. Now older, and wiser, they are the same gal that now drops everything and comes over just to hold your baby for you so you can shower and eat for the first time in who knows how long. We all need those people in our lives.
Just recently at our 8th annual cookies and cocktails party, a gathering idea I highly encourage you to steal for yourself, someone else in the room said, “oh yeah, she’s the one I’d call if I had to hide a body.” It was at that moment that I realized I wasn’t alone in this thought. Even my own mom has joked about it at times. These are the gals, or guys, that we hold near and dear to our hearts because they are the daily soul equivalent of chicken soup when suffering through a cold. They are the person you can count on for anything, at any time, under even the strangest of circumstances.
Like when the dogs chewed up one of the kids favorite stuffed animals in a way that’s beyond repair and yet you can’t let them find it in your own trash. Be the friend that hides the body.
For some of us it’s not hard to be that person at all beacuse we wouldn’t have hesitated to toss Cookie Monster and all the shattered pieces of his eyes into our bag to hide the evidence before the kids saw it. We’re the ones that feel it’s our duty to help out a friend in need because we’d hope they would do the same for us. We wear our body hiding as a badge of honor because we know it means the world for the friend we’re helping.
For others, being that type of friend might not come as naturally as it takes a sense of awareness that’s directed towards others. It requires the ability to survey what’s going on in someone elses life and seeing if you can add value to a struggle or situation they are in. If that’s not in your can of tricks just yet then don’t fret because you can strengthen your skills in this area and find yourself escalating to “hide the body” status with those closest to you.
You’ll learn that once you become the friend that would “hide the body,” your friendship becomes more like that of family members; or “framily” as some call it – friends that you chose to be your family. If you’ve got this person in your life already then take the time this year to learn how to become the same for them. The most fufilling part is seeing how you can make them smile and laugh when they need you to stuff that mutilated Cookie Monster into your bag and kidnap it for disposal.
