How to Live is written as a love letter to my daughter to share all the things I hope might help her live a better life … though I suspect others may also find it valuable.
Lovey,
At the ripe old age of 12, you are already well-versed in the precarious landscape of friendships. I am sorry to tell you that, in my experience anyway, it does not necessarily get easier as you get older.
I think the years just give you more experience in handling the various issues that inevitably arise in the course of a friendship. And you know yourself better, ideally, which helps you suss out who your real friends are, how you will allow yourself to be treated, and how much of what happened is actually a reflection on you (less than you think) and how much is your friends’ personal issues popping up.
Wow! We went deep fast there, didn’t we?
I guess what I want you to know about friendships is that there are many different kinds and they tend to shift over the years. Some are great, others less so.
Here’s a few I’ve had in my life…
The Childhood Friend
I went to a small, private elementary school in upstate New York where each grade had one classroom made up of about 20 kids. I started going there in pre-K (the ‘80’s version of TK), so I literally grew up with my classmates. I remember being “friends” in the loose sense of the word with basically every kid in class, but the one I had sleepovers with and played soccer at recess with the most was Heather.
I honestly don’t remember having any conflict with her, though I’m sure we must have over the typical troubles that plague most fourth graders, like who gets which sticker and what games we’d play. But I don’t recall feeling snubbed by her or left out. Again, maybe it happened here and there, but there was nothing that rose to the degree of inflicting lifelong harm, or, apparently, even memories of it.
She was just there, a constant. We played, talked, and laughed together. It was simple. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t want to spend time with me or that I wouldn’t with her. We were just friends. The end.
Then our family moved to Southern California the summer before sixth grade. THAT shook up my notions of friendship big time.
The Fake Friends
When I started my new school—also a small, private setting—there were 40 kids in my grade, which felt significantly larger. I mean it was double my previous school, so it legitimately was, but still not breaking any records in terms of the average public school grade size. Anyway, I made friends with a group of girls and we were tight. We even gave ourselves a name that I can’t for the life of me remember right now… The [Something] Seven (because there were seven us, get it?). I’m sure it was terribly (meaning, not in the least) clever in our minds, but it bonded our little clique—which to be sure it was.
We ate lunch together, hung out at recess and P.E. together, and got together after school. I was the new kid, but it seemed I had found my people, so all was well.
Until it wasn’t.
One day I got a letter from the group that they were mad at me (I have no recollection why … probably because there was no real reason for it) and I was kicked out of what would heretofore be known as The [Something] SIX, which is how they signed the note, really driving the point home.
They proceeded to make my life hell as best they could, making fun of me, talking behind my back, and generally ensuring that anyone they could influence steered clear of me. In a second, I became a middle-school pariah and I had no idea why. But I did know I spent my lunch and recess periods alone for the rest of the year. I felt enormously self-conscious about every little thing I did or said since they would mock me about literally anything, so I drew into myself. Shut down, basically
At our church youth group during this time, each week they’d ask how we were doing or for prayer requests, and I remember always saying I was tired as a means of deflecting attention or expectation from myself. They even gave me an empty box of No-Doz at the youth group Christmas party as a joke. But now I realize I was straight-up depressed.
When I changed schools in 8th grade and started at a gloriously large and diverse public school, I remember walking on the campus thinking, even if I don’t make any friends, I’ll survive because I did for the last two years by myself. Which oddly freed me to just say hi to people (SO hard for my very introverted self) and see what happened.
The Lifers
I did make friends at that school, but then we moved again, so I was the new girl (AGAIN) when I started high school. But it was also a public school, which I now knew I loved, and I had gained a certain measure of confidence in my ability to make friends from the previous year.
The second day of ninth grade, a pretty girl with bouncing brown hair and a giant smile sat down next to me in Spanish class and I noticed she was wearing a t-shirt of a Christian singer I knew from summer camp. I told her I liked her shirt, she flashed me her megawatt smile, and we became fast friends. Through Heather (yes, another Heather — what can I say? It was a popular name for girls born in the late ‘70s), I met her childhood best friend, Chrissy, and their group of friends.
They were all fun, interesting, and kind. They didn’t care that I hadn’t grown up with them. We were friends now and that was that. We’d walk home to Heather’s house on half days, listen to music, dance, and generally act like teenagers. We’d swim in Chrissy’s pool and eagerly eat all the delicious food her Armenian mother, Lena, fed us.
When my family moved away in the middle of my 10th grade year, I was devastated. I finally had friends I liked who liked me and I felt like I belonged. We rarely saw each other through our remaining high school years, but we visited each other’s colleges and tried to stay in touch.
After college, I moved back into the area for work and became roommates with one of our high school friends and we all resumed our friendship, this time hanging out in our apartment or going to restaurants to hear our friend sing.
Chrissy and I have seen each other here and there as adults, and we always pick up right where we left off. She’s part of me, my history, at this point. One of my great joys was her meeting you and you getting to swim in that same pool at her parents’ house and have Nana Lena ply with you “secret candy”, which delighted you to no end. That’s a core-belonging friendship.
The Adult Friends
As an adult, more often than not you make friends through your work or, later, through your kids’ friends’ parents or schools. Sometimes you get lucky, like I did with your friend Logan’s mom Carrie, and really bond. Other times, you just have a nice acquaintance that you can grab dinner with from time to time.
My adult friendships have felt extra tricky, especially when our kids are involved because when you have a falling out with a friend, it can be hard to know how to address it with the parent who I only sort of know but have hung out with once or twice.
Then there’s the challenge of NO TIME. Life gets busier and busier, and friendships seem to fall to the wayside if you don’t have strong ones already built into your circle. Moving across the country to an area where you don’t know anyone definitely exacerbates this, as we well know.
Yet you never stop craving the connection and belonging that comes with real friendship. But finding the ones who you share interests with and who have similar availability in terms of actually being able to hang out shrinks the potential friend pool considerably.
So yeah, friendship is complicated and weird and just confusing to know how to handle at almost every stage of life, but the benefits of truly good friends are worth the effort. Here are a few valuable lessons I’ve learned about navigating friendships along the way.
Look for people who are genuinely kind and decent.
I do tend to believe that most people are good, but not everyone is kind or a very good friend, frankly. Notice how people speak about others when they aren’t around or how they treat the ones they are with. Who they are in these situations is a good indicator of the kind of person and friend they are.
Pay attention to how you feel around someone.
If you feel bad about yourself around someone, don’t give them your energy or consider them your friend. Real friends leave you feeling good about yourself; they encourage you and lift you up. They make you feel like you belong. If your gut tells you something is off about a person, trust that instinct.
Apologize when you need to.
If you’re going to be in any relationship, you’re going to disagree and will probably be wrong from time to time, mess up somehow. I know I have and so has everyone else. The important thing is to apologize and try to set things right as soon as you can. Own your part (but only your part — don’t take on what’s not legitimately yours), ask for forgiveness, and do your best not to repeat the mistake. Learning how to repair a rift is one of the most valuable relationship skills you can develop.
Be honest and have the hard conversations.
Sometimes a friend wrongs you and you need to have a hard conversation about how you feel. You can do this with kindness and honesty and give them the benefit of the doubt, but don’t avoid it. If you do, resentment will build and trust will be lost. For worthwhile friendships, clearing the air is essential to keeping that relationship thriving.
Prioritize good friends.
It’s so easy to get super busy with everyday life and neglect your friendships, so make the time for them as much as you can. When you think about them, send them a quick text letting them know or inviting them to meet up or chat on the phone. Anything to keep that connection going, because your tried-and-true friends can add so much joy, comfort, and belonging to your life. Investing your time and energy in them will always be worth it.
Love,
Mommy
What’s Giving Me Life
You know I love a good time-travel story, so I could not have been happier to find Midnight at the Pera Palace on Netflix. A journalist named Esra mysteriously travels from present-day Turkey to 1919 through the Pera Palace, a luxurious hotel that Ottoman Empire and military leaders frequent for cocktails and hatching plots to overthrow the leaders or dissidents who stand in their way. Intrigue naturally ensues.
You can watch it dubbed in English or in the original Turkish with English subtitles, but either way, it’s a wild ride through time, love, class, and power struggles. The first season ended with a clear setup for season two, which appears will take us to Nazi-era WWII (my eagle eye caught sight of a swastika on an officer’s sleeve in the background), so I am IN.