Pity Parties.

I am thankful for “pity parties.”

Of all the potential best friends in the world, my JB ranks in the 99.9^th percentile. She is a genius. She is hysterically funny. She is supportive and dependable and sarcastic and a terrific wife and mother. She’s one of the best gifts God has sent me to date, and I will lose my mind if she ever has to live far away from me. Although, after 12 years of friendship, we have dozens of memories and traditions, one of our enduring favorites is the “pity party.” We established said parties during our senior year of high school and have indulged in them infrequently but when necessary ever since. They’re based on two fundamental beliefs: 1) Sometimes you just want someone to listen to you complain, and 2) Chocolate is delicious.

If I describe the glory of pity parties, I realize I’m running the risk of everyone—or at least all the like-minded women—wanting to attend. But I’m going to do it anyway because they are wonderfully therapeutic. It goes like this: a 2-liter of soda + Swiss Rolls + moaning and complaining until you feel better + someone listening sympathetically as long as it takes + Bridget Jones’s Diary (optional humor booster) = pity party. I assure you, it cures all evils. JB and I have had pity parties to get through breakups, family/work stress, procrastination, and general disappointment. We even had a pity party over the phone while I was in graduate school. Lost your job? You need a pity party. Your boyfriend cheated? You need a pity party. Your car was stolen? You need a pity party.

While I realize it’s not the healthiest idea to wallow in despair and gorge yourself on Little Debbies, I assure you both are side notes in a much lovelier story. What makes the pity party work is the loving support of a friend who cares deeply about your hurt or frustration or confusion. Pity parties are about reminding yourself that you’re not wandering in the dark. You’re connected, loved, and integral to someone else. That’s what JB tells me all the time, directly and indirectly, whether we call an official pity party or not. And that’s one of the 3,000 reasons I love her. So here’s to pity parties! Which translates, of course, to, “Thank God for friendship.” And chocolate. And most importantly, in my case, for JB.

Mistakes.

I am thankful for mistakes.

I was up to bat. Luckily for my team, it was knowledge of French grammar that was requisite to win, rather than physical prowess. I had a death grip on the buzzer, ready to signal my intelligence. “What is the vous conjugation of faire?” my professor asked. I slammed the buzzer. “Fairez!” I yelled. She gave me a disappointed look and said, “Sorry, no.” My face flushed. I assumed I’d misunderstood the question: all vous conjugations end in –ez, right? Obviously. But in fact, when I opened my textbook to confirm my correctness, vous faîtes stared me in the face. “Well, crap,” I thought dejectedly. But on the exam the following day, I didn’t miss a single question using faire.

You probably have a story like this as well: you missed the mark somewhere, got something all wrong, but you gained valuable knowledge or wisdom. That’s what I love about mistakes: when you start making them, you start learning. C.S. Lewis, whose work I admire greatly, once wrote, “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn. My God, do you learn.” In the past few weeks, I have decided that there is really no shame in making a mistake. The only shame would be not learning from it. Mistakes, after all, are brilliant teachers.

Of course, some mistakes hurt. Some engender a blow to the confidence. Some are unspeakably costly. Some cause months or years of shame. But making them shows you weren’t afraid to jump in, to go after something. You were willing to do something risky. And after the fact, you became wiser. You got up and continued on—that is the stuff courage is made of. And if you did it right, you learned.


“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher

Teenagers.

I am thankful for teenagers.

They’re my job security.

But, of course, there are more important reasons than that.

There’s a song by My Chemical Romance that repeats the line, “Teenagers scare the living [feces] out of me.” Many people seem to agree: I’m always hearing about how frighteningly they drive, what attitudes they have, and their egregious sense of entitlement. There are days I agree on all three accounts, especially the driving. But often I think adults shortchange teenagers simply because that’s how we’ve always interacted with younger generations.

I think about the girl who told me a couple of weeks ago that her life was shattered because…wait for it…her boyfriend of two weeks broke up with her. I know, I know—“How could she love him after two weeks?” “It’s lust, not love.” “She’ll get over him in twenty-four hours.” “Teenagers think they invented love.” “There are so many other boys out there.” But here’s the thing: while the love of a teenager is different than the love of an adult, they’re loving to capacity. They’re expending their whole heart’s energies on their special person. Whether it’s Love or “love,” it feels the same to a teenager, and it’s crushing when it’s over. It sometimes leads them to unwise decisions and heartbreak, sure. But it’s also admirable. They do love like they’ve never been hurt. I don’t, not if I can help it. I love cautiously, sometimes pessimistically, even in non-romantic relationships. I’m always wondering, “What if I let myself trust these people, even rely on them, and then they leave?” My brain has people moving or passing away before we’ve spent two hours together. A teenager, on the other hand, loves recklessly, fiercely, enthusiastically. Their love might be fickle sometimes, but it’s also beautiful. Teenagers love first and ask questions later. Kind of like God.

And I love their honesty. Ask a teenager a question, and you get a real answer. “So, Josh, did you do your homework?” “No, I didn’t want to.” (Not that I’m suggesting we shirk responsibility. It’s the candor I admire, not the laziness.) We adults beat around the bush so often that we end up sugarcoating even when it would be beneficial to us to simply tell the truth. We tell the guy, “I didn’t call because I was busy,” rather than just being honest and saying, “It’s flattering, but I’m not interested.” We take on more than we can handle because we can’t bear for others to know we’re overwhelmed. We agree to go out to dinner or on vacation with friends when we know we don’t have the money, just so we don’t have to say, “I can’t afford it.” Perhaps the place that most desperately needs a dose of teenage transparency is the church. Why don’t we just say to each other, “I need you. Help me.” Or, “I screwed up, and now my heart is broken.” Or, “I can’t do this anymore.” We wouldn’t have to spin our wheels and internalize so much if we just got it out.

In short, I guess my favorite thing about teenagers is that even though they’re just as messy as adults are, they often aren’t afraid to let their messiness show—their big emotions, their confusion, their heartache. Their words don’t always come out right, they don’t always make the right decision, and they don’t yet have all the information and wisdom it takes to live successfully. But they go for it. They build things, start things, jump in. They’re scared, beautiful, weird, passionate, and goofy. And I am thankful for them and love them with my whole heart.