Friendship
Writing about friendship is hard.
I’ve heard it before - authors lamenting over how complicated female friendships can be. “It’s just impossible to capture on a page.”
Actually, it feels quite simple.
What is hard about friendship is what is hard about personhood - regardless of gender.
It boils down to discomfort with change.
We can spin it many ways:
-People “growing apart.”
-People hurting other people.
-People realizing they’re different than before.
What we mean by all of this is something we’ve all heard during childhood:
-You’ve changed.
-You aren’t who you used to be.
-I thought you were this, but now - you’re different.
We want to believe in stability over spectrum. There's comfort in that.
Accepting friendships as part of the relationship continuum is extra scary, as titles are virtually non-existent.
Romantic love has levels of commitment (girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband).
But friendships? Oof. Feels like the wild west.
We make hierarchy for safety (colleague, acquaintance, friend, best friend).
But the reality is - we all need different people throughout our lifetime. So when these categories shift, we mourn an ambiguous loss - the grief of What Once Was.
Part of this is because we have been trained to celebrate longevity over growth.
50 years married! (but 48 of them miserable).
10 years of best friendship! (but shit-talking abounds).
If we believe in the ebb and flow of our careers, housing, familial relationships - we can apply this same grace to our friendships.
Instead of clutching, desperately, to what our friendships once were - we can make way for what is waiting to burst through.
I’m not saying - lose all your friends.
I am saying - Marie Kondo them.
Take stock of old dynamics.
Keep what sparks joy.
Purge the rest (with boundaries, fluidity, tough conversations).
Yes - change is hard, when we actively resist it. Or blame the other person. Or stay victimized by the discomfort it brings.
But acceptance? Responsibility? Discomfort as a teacher?
That. Feels like freedom.
Stability in flow.
Just imagine all the wild that would come.
