The gift of seeing

I broke down during a toast because I finally—39 years in—saw things clearly

A few weeks ago I gave a toast at a celebratory event and did something I have never done during a public fêting.

I started crying.

Part of me wanted to blame it on the strong Cosmopolitan I was enjoying—or perhaps on the work I have been doing to reprogram my emotional robot self—but given that I can tether the precise moment the tears sprang into my eyes and voice to the words I uttered, the cause was clear.

In the moments before I decided to join the toasting queue for my friend Paige’s 50th birthday, I formed a rough mental sketch of the three points I wanted to communicate. 

I would open with context: the fact that Paige and I met in the 6th grade, and that I hadn’t done the math on how many years that was, but it roughly translated to a fucking long time. 

I would then shine a light on Paige’s humanity, calling out how she is that rare friend with whom you can experience all shades of light and dark; that she is unconditional in both her love and her ability to issue real talk. That she is the kind of friend who will be first on the scene in a moment of need.

And I would close by broadening the context and remarking on the evolution of—and great possibilities in—friendship; something that fellow guests could consider in their own relationships. Because one thing that has been wonderful and unexpected about Paige and my friendship evolution is that even though we were friends in middle and high school, our relationship deepened in a major way as adults. 

As teenagers our bond was formed primarily through our love of theatre (the below photo is from Li’l Abner, 1988), though I wouldn’t say either of us considered the other a “first call” friend—the type of friend who is the first to know all of the wonderful and horrible details of your life. But then not long after we crossed into our 30s we found ourselves living about 20 minutes apart and pregnant with our first babies. We started spending more time together in pregnancy and during our maternity leaves, soon to become dear confidantes. 

We 100% fantasized about our firstborn children getting married. Or at the very least, going to prom together. And over the next 18 years we supported one another through everything from career jumps to personal highs and lows to election-based rage.

Indeed, Paige knows pretty much every wonderful and horrible detail about my life. I often refer to her as The Vault, the person who I know I can trust with everything. I have joked that we can never break up because we each have too much dirt on each other.

And so, at the next clear lull in the toast queue, I stood up, ready to deliver my three-point toast that hit the appropriate notes of humor, tenderness, and insight.

I nailed the opening joke about our long-standing friendship.

And then I fell apart.

Because what struck me in that moment was something that I have always at some level known about Paige but had not articulated until that moment. That in the entire duration of my knowing Paige—39 years, as I later calculated—she has never given a shit about the lines that might form between people; instead, she sees people with clarity and delights in the lines that can connect people.

And her way of being proved an actual lifeline for me.

When I met Paige in 1984 I was, like most tweens, awkward. But more crucially, I was not desirable from a social perspective given the norms of our affluent suburb. I was one of few kids of color, my family was chaos oriented, and I didn’t have money to meet elitist cafeteria standards such as only being allowed to sit at the cool girl lunch table if you owned a certain number of Benetton sweaters and Guess jeans.

Yes, that was actually a thing.

Paige somehow rode above the fray and the bullshit. She carried herself with unusual elegance and sense of style even as a teen—she wore fedoras before modern day influencers assumed them as part of their uniform and showed up to school as comfortable in a preppy crisp white shirt and denim skirt as she did in a dress and pearls.

In a nutshell, it would have been easy for her to perceive the social status gulf between us as too wide or too compromising of her own position and move along.

But she didn’t seem to care about any of that and saw me as a whole person—at a time when many people simply saw me as an “other” and did, in fact, move along.

And so, on that night of celebration, as I looked out at the beautiful and intimate gathering my mind went off the rails from my remaining two bullet concepts because I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed to at last see someone I had known so long with such clarity. I was overwhelmed by the conversations I had with other guests about Paige during cocktail hour—there were so many stories about how she touched and connected lives. I was overwhelmed even by the immediate surroundings; for her own party, Paige gifted a beautiful coffee table style book to each guest, hand picked to align to a specific interest or passion or perception of that person.

Paige had created a party that was less about her, and more about her relationships and showing others how much she sees and values people. She chose to use her big 50th ask to bring those people together. (It’s worth noting that every single invited guest RSVP’d in the affirmative, with several guests flying in from all over the country.)

I could feel the tears start to nip at the edges of my words as I shared what an incredible reflection that night was of how Paige shows up in her relationships. And then I tumbled over the edge into tears as I shared that Paige is one of few people who has seen me for whom I am from the very beginning, even back when it was most definitely not cool.

It wasn’t an elegant toast but embracing imperfect feelings is my current life’s work. So thanks, Paige, for giving me another opportunity to practice.

May we all strive to truly see and reflect back the very best in the people we care about, in all the shaded moments of light and dark.

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Endnotes

• If you are curious about further back story about the Benetton sweater + Guess jean requirement I faced (and failed) in middle school, I talked about the baggage I have wrestled with related to clothing and outward presentation given my childhood scarcity.

• I don’t name her in the episode, but Paige is the anchor of one of the examples I share in this Edit Your Life episode about simple friendship reboot tactics.

• Paige’s gift to me was The Rainbow Atlas: A Guide to the World's 500 Most Colorful Places. It is a wonder and is guiding my travel fantasies. The link here is to Bookshop, from which purchases support independent bookstores.

Did this story help you consider a relationship in your own life with a fresh lens? I would be so grateful if you would consider sharing it. Thank you.