How Are You? Really?

My friends and I have gotten in the habit of intentional “how are you doing?” check-ins.

My two best college friends and I have lived in different cities for nearly five years now and our lives have branched in different directions. We’ve kept up with each other (while navigating some ups and downs of our friendship and general early twenties madness) through once or twice a year visits and frequent, lengthy video calls.

Seriously – we clocked six and seven-hour calls in the early years. We talked a few times a month and still would push the call until 3 am. Usually, someone ended up asleep on camera. We were adjusting. We missed each other. We were often pretty drunk.

A different friend had introduced the idea of wine-skype dates and I ran with it. I’d stay in, call my friends, and drink a bottle of wine. This is how our deep check-ins started: inhibitions down, we could talk about what’s really going on with one another as long as it was late enough in the night. Not exactly healthy, especially when we didn’t follow up on each other’s wine-induced confessions when we were sober, yet it helped us stay connected.

Eventually, we had to agree that the real stuff needed to be handled real sober. Whenever possible. It’s been a work in progress, but now the three of us have naturally transitioned out of some of our more destructive habits. We can skype without drinking. We can get real without wine.

This past weekend we sat around the indoor fireplace after a day of hiking and a dinner of too much pizza. “How are you?” I’m asked. And we all know what it means. Not a one-word answer, but a platform to speak. We have a lot to speak about and it’s as good as place as any to start. When one of us says “fine” we sit and wait. We ask questions. We want to know. We love each other.

By the end of the night, we’ve made the way around our small circle. It’s the first check-in I’ve been truly vulnerable for in a few years. I cried and cracked a bit, we all did, but we found our way through it.

I love that about our friendship. That we are not satisfied with superficial. That we want to see what’s going on beneath each other’s skin. That we want to see it so we can heal it or love it.

To quote John Lennon, I get by with a little help from my friends. Bless them.

With Love,
Natalie