I had tea today.

I had tea today in a tiny new cafe on Main Street, in a little town in Nova Scotia three minutes from where I live. I had tea in the perfect cup … bone colored … the perfect size for my hand. I love the perfect size cup. Something simple with a wide brim. I sat in front of one of those wide low propane fireplaces in a big comfy chair with a bigger round coffee table to sit my perfect cup and saucer on.

I’m one of those annoyingly detailed people who sees, appreciates and am grateful for those things.

But none of this post is about the tea or the cup or the fireplace.

It’s about the person who asked me out for tea.

I have been blessed … so blessed … to have had many friends in my life. Good friends. Great friends. Forever friends and there-for-you friends. Friends who have come and friends who have left. Group friends and fun friends. A best friend. Tell each other everything friends. Facebook friends and Instagram friends. Friends I laugh with and friends I cry with. Friends I have let go of. Surface friends and party friends. And deep amazing I-recognize-your-soul-friends.

I whisper thank you for these friends everyday. I have different types of gratitude for each of these people in my life.

But today I feel gratitude for this particular friend. For many reasons … but for one reason in particular strikes me today. Her name is Carrie. And Carrie … well Carrie … always makes the attempt.

You see, I tend to be a planner. An organizer. I love to gather people together. It is a big part of who I am and I relish every minute of it. It fills me up and I do it with vigor and sincerity. I try and do it also without agenda or need for reciprocation. But sometimes when you have a personality like that people … friends … well … they wait for you to come to them. They wait for you to contact them. They wait for you to be the pursuer. It’s only natural. Human nature. And that is all okay.

But not Carrie. Carrie never waits. She makes time to try and get together. Just us. Not part of a huge group and not by happenstance. She is very purposeful about wanting to spend time together and cultivating our friendship. She actively contacts me as often as I contact her. She asks me to get together as much as I ask her. It’s not about a balancing act and it’s not about tit for tat. But it is about feeling valued.

There are many, many times in our lives Carrie and I are not successful about getting together. We have busy lives with work and family and husbands and other friendships … but I’ve come to realize, it’s not the success rate that matters. It’s the attempt. It’s the question. It’s the time we take when we call or text or pm and ask each other for lunch. Because the thing is, she isn’t really asking me for lunch. She is ACTIVELY saying to me “I see you. You matter in my life. I want to spend time with you. I know we are busy and I know maybe you can’t … but I’m making an effort and I’m making you a priority in my life because you matter to me.”

Boy. That’s a lot to be said in a short “Wanna have lunch” text isn’t it? But to me that’s what it means. That’s how much it means. To me. It’s not the tea or the lunch or the place or even the end result of even seeing each other. It’s the ATTEMPT that means the world to me.

Carrie and I have not been in each other’s lives for a particularly long period of time. Our kids enjoy each other but are not best friends. We never grew up together and I don’t think she knows my parents names and I don’t always remember when her kids birthdays are. We don’t chat on the phone all the time, and up until a year or two ago our friendship was mainly based in group settings. If you count up the things we “aren’t”, well maybe on the outside there are quite a few.

But in a world where friendships can be based solely on convenience, and over a screen where it matters who hits a “like” button for you, she is so very purposeful and genuine about being active in our friendship. She takes the time and makes the effort to make “us” a priority. I like to think I make the same kind of effort with her.

And so often in this busy world it doesn’t work out. But like I said before. It matters not.

Because sometimes “the beauty is in the attempt”.