People have often told me that they feel like they have known me for year when in reality, we had just met an hour prior to that statement. I guess I have played the stranger role enough times that fulfilling the journey of a stranger to the destination of friendship is now second nature to me.
I will never forget what my former roommate in my host home during my time in Mexico City told me. It is forever engrained in my mind and motivates me to take this journey as often as I possibly can. She said that one should learn to appreciate the process of getting to know people because through each human made in the image of God, you can see different traits of God in them.
It is as though you are putting together the pieces of a puzzle with each person you get to know. Will we ever be able to fully see Him? Not until we reach heaven. He is to complicated and beyond our wildest dreams to fully grasp and understand in this lifetime.
I frequently find myself in situations where I am the 'new person.'
The concept of novelty will always have its pros and cons.
Novelty.
It is like taking a cd and listening to it for the first time. But listening to it just once does not give you a chance to get to know its character on a deeper level (unless the album is blantantly lacking in character and originality). Each play should allow us to discover something new about the album that we had not seen before.
We can become starstruck by the concept of novelty. Afterall, who does not like something new that catches our eye? It consumes our attention and sparks our curiosity. But if we aren't careful, we will constantly be searching for something new rather than building depth in potential friendships and relationships.
And what is new will always only last for a season before it becomes familiar.
As one that has constantly moved in her youth, I believe that one of the worst feelings is to finally recognize that your sense of novelty has worn off and not passed the test of true friendship. It is the point when you see that one in which you trusted move on to the next thing that has caught their eyes.
And you were old news.
I always try to avoid this outcome. I think this is what tends to partially motivate my passion for learning. If I learn more, I know more; thus, I have more to contribute in the friendship.
But the true gift is the one that passes through the road of novelty through to a genuine appreciation and depth in the friendship.
This is what makes the process of getting to know people worthwhile.
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Beautifully put. I agree and can empathize. I think that's another thing our culture has lost - the appreciation for things that have been around. Whether that is elderly people, long-time acquaintances or family, antiques, old trades ... and of course friends/romantic partners. Once the shine has dulled people move on instead of, like you said, moving to the NEXT level of closeness and appreciation. I think people aren't taught this lesson (taught in the sense of "learning by observing others" not in the sense of "going to school to learn about it") but it's good to hear people talking about the existence of this epidemic.
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