Teddy’s Mom — Peyton Garland
Making friends as an adult is awkward, exhausting—plain hard. You can’t share a Barbie to bond, nor can you connect over mutual hate for the high school bully. The older you get, the more baggage you carry, the more reasons you’re hesitant to trust people. Needless to say, I can count on half a hand the number of friends I’ve made post-college.
When Josh and I moved to Colorado, I knew creating friendships would be crucial to calling the Rocky Mountains home, but since I work from home, I haven’t had as many opportunities to “get out there” and meet folks. Guess you can say this is when God gets creative (and slobbery) with weaving lives together.
A few months into visiting the apartment’s dog park with Alfie and Daisy, we met Teddy the German Shepherd and his mom. Teddy’s mom was in the same boat as me. She’d just moved to Colorado for her husband’s job, she was stuck at home all day as a full-time, online student, and her only friend was her dog.
Both of us eager for human interaction, we decided to grab Dutch Bros (the best coffee chain west of the Mississippi). She paid for my drink and wanted to hear my stories more than she wanted to tell her own. She was someone I wanted to be my friend, but before we could hang out again, things got wild at the dog park.
A Great Dane got in Alfie’s face, spooked him, and Alfie quickly backed him off with a gnaw on the ear. Dog park drama spreads faster than who-likes-who in middle school. Lots of people labeled Alfie a vicious, aggressive attack dog, made snide comments in front of me and Josh, pulled their dogs away from us in public. Even dog parents who hadn’t been at the dog park that day had their own stories to contribute.
But not Teddy’s mom.
Practically hiding in the apartment out of pure embarrassment, I got a text from her that read, “[Alfie] is just a sweetheart and I’m so sorry y’all are going through this.”
That was it. I knew I had a friend. Now? Josh and I take our pups to play with Teddy and his mom at their new home. We carve pumpkins together, share recipes, send texts just to check in on each other. We’re friends.
I say all that to say this: friendship doesn’t require bells and whistles and Barbies, just honesty. Friendship doesn’t require a mutual hate for dog park drama, just a text that says, “I’m here.”
Perhaps friendship is still hard—I can vie for the concept that showing up for others when it’s hard isn’t easy, but I think the “awkward”, unsure parts of friendship come from fear, from pride, but not from people. At the end of the day, those sitting on the other side of the almost-friendship, those you’re debating are worth the possibility of friendship, are hoping you will reach out and see their worth too.
Go get coffee. Send the text. Give adult friendships a try.
Peyton Garland is an author who uses her OCD, disdain for legalism, and obsession with Jesus rap to showcase just how good God’s goodness is. She’s a wife and puppy momma who’s on a constant journey to accept God’s grace and her trial-and-error heart.
