The Ones Who See You

Dear You,

Last Sunday, we spent time with friends at Buckeye Lake. The clouds hadn’t committed to anything yet, and the water had gone flat and silver underneath them— the way it does when the weather is still thinking.

Chas had the wheel. Barefoot, ballcap, one hand loose on the throttle like a man who’s done it ten thousand times—thought only two seasons in. Deb keeps looking back toward the house, talking about how good lake life has been for them both. And Nick is in the seat beside Chas, sunglasses on, grinning at a guy he met when the two of them were five years old.

Five. No job titles yet. No mortgage, no resume, no hard years, no diagnoses.. Chas knew him back when the biggest question of the afternoon was who got the good swing.

We ran out past the lotus beds — acres of them, wide green plates and white blooms sitting flat on the surface like the lake had set the table for company. Past them, off in the distance, a lighthouse. White tower, red lantern room, standing watch over a lake that never gets deep enough to be dangerous.

I love a lighthouse. You know that about me. I built a whole brand around a lantern — same idea, smaller scale.

But sitting there Sunday, I found myself thinking about what happens when you already know the way home, Do you still need the light?

Chas knows this water now. Where the channel runs, where the weeds will reach up and grab you. No lighthouse required.

I found myself watching Nick closely. His shoulders were a little lower. The laugh came easier. Stories started with “Remember when…” and didn’t require much explanation after that. There is something beautiful about watching someone you love be with a person who knew them before life asked them to become so many other things.

For a minute, they weren’t two grown men with decades of life behind them. They were just free to be wholly themselvesz

Now, I almost wrote this whole thing about old friends. Fifty years, kindergarten, all of it.

But that’s not actually the point, and I don’t want to hand you the wrong measuring stick.

Honestly, some of the people who know me best showed up just a few years ago. A few of them arrived in the middle of a season I wasn’t sure I’d get through. Others were there for the busy parenting years, when life was a flurry of shared activities and somebody was always in somebody else’s minivan.

And some of them share my last name and got no vote in the matter at all.

Length of service isn’t the qualification. Being seen is.

You don’t have to catch them up on who you are before you can tell them what’s actually going on. They already know which version of your voice means I’m fine and which one means I’m really not.

Sometimes that takes fifty-plus years. Sometimes it takes one unusually honest afternoon.

We keep treating being known like something we’ll get to later. After the promotion. After the kids are grown. After the house is in order. We’ll reconnect once things settle down.

Things don’t settle down. That has never once been what things do.

Last Sunday asked nothing of me. No agenda, no strategy, no deliverable. Just four friends, a pontoon, a cooler, a field of lotus blooms, and not one thing that needed explaining.

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Lighthouses are beautiful, and they serve a real purpose in open water. But those people who truly see you for you? They don’t just bring the light.

They’re the shore. They’re what the light has been pointing you back toward the whole time.

Anchor Here has never meant find the right place. It means find the people who don’t need the introduction — and then make the time to be with them. Put it on the calendar. Drive the distance. Get in the boat.

So, friend: who sees you?

Not who’s been around longest. Not who’s most convenient, or most impressive. Who looks at you and doesn’t need the highlight reel?

Call them.

You’re OK. And you are not meant to be out here by yourself. Carry Your Lantern and maybe one for a friend as well.

— Heather