about same and different.
At the beginning of the month, I spent time working with my friend, Peg. We’ve been friends since 1995.
Peg and I are the same and different.
Most people are taken by the differences.
Ask Char, she met Peg the day Char and I had our first meeting. I think she would tell you that it would be hard to imagine two Caucasian women who seemed more compatibly different.
When Peg and I worked in the same building, people often took one of us aside to ask what our friendship was about. They couldn’t find a place where our two minds might actually meet.
Too funny.
From the second we met Peg and I had a universe to sort out. . . . starting with how kids learn to read.
Imagine a company dinner to introduce three new consultants, one of whom was me. It was the kind of dinner Peg hates to attend. It was the kind of dinner that so appealed to my curiosity. I sat in the middle of the long restaurant table with my newest best friend, the consultant I had met the night before. Peg sat near the end with a long-time friend. I asked and answered questions. I told stories. Peg listened, waiting for dinner to be over.
As we were leaving the restaurant, she came up to me to say, “You’re one different lady. I’m free Saturday. I know you’re staying at the hotel. I’d like to take you to lunch. I’ll buy all of the wine it takes for you to tell me how kids learn to read.” (Peg, Director of Operations, wanted to know how the books her warehouse folks shipped and her customer service folks talked about served children.)
I said, “Sure, I’m Liz.” I thought, she reminds me of me.
This month when I saw Peg, I heard her say something she often says, “Why would I want to have friends with people who are the same as me? That would be redundant?”
I answered, “We meet where we agree.” I was thinking of a Venn diagram.
Peg observed, “I find the ways people are different from me. You find the ways they are the same as you.”
Peg and I are always observing and learning from each other. We’re always there when the other needs something. She still buys the wine. I still tell her how kids learn to read.
Peg and I are the same and different. Not a thing about us is redundant, yet you can bet we know the places and spaces where we are the same.
That’s why we are worth so much to each other.
Do you have a same and different friend?
