Tag Archives: friendship

I’m Easily Distant…Even Now

April 5, 2015 By in Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Now that I’m thirty, I feel more comfortable with myself than I’ve ever felt in the past.

I’m eerily familiar with that weird vocal quirk in my voice I’ve had since third grade that people occasionally remind me I still have.

I know exactly what I should eat for breakfast in the morning to keep me going for at least 3 hours and not make me groggy (right now it’s bananas and peanuts butter, and/or a green smoothie plus coffee. It used to be oatmeal). Boring, but necessary for me to know.

Vegetarianism is part of my soul. I can’t imagine eating meat ever again. For now, anyway.

I’ve gone almost platinum blonde kinda by accident since the summer (I suddenly decided to dye my hair myself for the first time, and after much trial error and purple hair it just kinda happened). And I love it. Right now, anyway 😉

When I feel good, I feel really, really good. Overall my life seems to get better and better as I get older- I’ve always felt that way. I’m very much still working at feeling my best more often (I know it’s all waves), and tracking down major life goals that can help me move forward. I really want to master the subtle art of Not Giving A Fuck about unimportant things, which we’ve talked about a lot on this blog….more than once.  However, one of the things I’m really always working on, especially now that I know myself better, is being able to tell others what I need and want…after figuring out what I need and want.

It’s very easy for me to let friends, family, and significant others take the lead and pull me down their path without much resistance from me. I’m very good at going with the flow (something I really know about myself)- and that combined with a dislike of confrontation, an intense empathy for other people’s feelings, and a deep curiosity for other people’s habits and points of view can occasionally leave me feeling swept up in lives that are not my own. I can let others sweep me so far into their lives that I don’t even realize how distant I suddenly feel from myself.

I don’t know if that makes sense exactly or if it feels familiar to any of you. Or if you’ve outgrown this now that you’re in your thirties. But sometimes I’m the polar opposite of the ideal cool and collected thirty-something who doesn’t give a fuck. I used to give so many fucks about what other people thought that my life became a guessing game and I thought I was the ultimate winner of knowing what people wanted. All I cared about was making my favorite people happy and figuring out how to play their game correctly.

I doing so, I would sometimes lose what exactly I wanted and who I wanted to be. With my best friends, this didn’t really happen. But with acquaintances and romantic relationships, I would become distant from myself which would also lead to a certain distance from others. I couldn’t honestly communicate who I was and what I wanted because I myself wasn’t aware of what exactly I wanted. And once I figured it out, it felt scary to tell.

Sometimes that distance returns, even in my thirties. I find myself getting swept up in other people’s lives and dispositions once again, and I lose what I want and start to forget who I am. If I don’t stay in touch with myself by meditating, re-centering, talking to good friends, and expressing what I need, this old habit from the past seems to return.

It’s interesting that even though we can come so far by the time we’re in our thirties, those old traits from our younger days can still seem to be lurking around the corner, waiting for a time to reappear and scare the crap out of us. For now, anyway.

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Happy Birthday to My Best Friend!!!

March 8, 2015 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Yayyyy!!! Today is Jane’s birthday!!!

The amazing 33! Woohoo!!!!

Happy Birthday to the best Best Friend and Co-Blogger a girl could ask for!! 

I wish I was there to celebrate with you, Jane! But I know you’re having a blast vacationing with your man in Palm Springs! 🙂

Even though you lose an hour of your day to Daylight Savings Time, we’re going to officially call this Jane’s complete birthday week! So there will be many hours more added to the celebration time!

Thanks to our wonderful readers and friends for joining us as we all continue to celebrate birthdays together!

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Or spending time with my friend..

 

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Love you!!!

 

 

The Things We’re Attached To In Our Thirties (or Paste the Space)

February 3, 2015 By in Friendships, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This is not my original post. I have some intense money posts planned for the coming days, but today I just have to talk about the pain of losing something I love.

I never realized how important a certain thing was to my mood until it was gone:

Two days ago, I opened up a bottle of fizzy water and it exploded. What I thought was a small amount of water hit the keyboard of my laptop.

I immediately wiped off the water and put a washcloth on the keyboard to absorb any remaining water. The computer seemed fine. Everything was working perfectly. So I forgot all about it. I went to the hotel gym for the next 45 minutes. When I came back upstairs, a few keys on my keyboard wouldn’t work.

I freaked out. I googled every possible forum on how to get keyboards working again. I turned my laptop upside down. I put it near the air vent in the hotel room (Im working an auto show in Philly). I gave it time. Nothing has happened. My keys (including the spacebar, delete, and tab key- all pretty important) haven’t returned to usability.

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My poor, hurt Mac Air has left me sad and hurting for it.

Since I’m out of town and working all day most days, I haven’t yet taken the laptop to the Apple Store. I’ve heard it’s too expensive to have them fix it anyway (it’s out of warranty), so I’ve been googling about other ways to fix it. No definite decisions yet.

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I was out at dinner tonight with my friend Kate and I realized how much the hurt laptop was affecting my mood. She was talking about her injured cat and dog and I was talking about my injured laptop. Staring at it upside down by my airvent made me not even want to be in my hotel room anymore. It completely changed the happy mood of getting off work and relaxing at ‘home.’

I hadn’t felt so upset about a computer since college, when I had to spend two hundred dollars or so (my life savings at the time) to fix an errant Dell laptop that went kaput. Tonight I didn’t realize how overblown my emotions about the computer were until I was lamenting my sadness about the computer to Kate, and mentioned how I had to use copy/paste to put spaces between words because of my broken spacebar. She started laughing hysterically (though sympathetically).

And then the food arrived and we laughed even harder at how her food was served in a pineapple.

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I suddenly realized that I was missing all the fun of the present moment. I was having tons of fun with a friend I barely see and most of my thoughts were still bordering on obsession with fixing the laptop.

Now that I’m thirty I would hope I could put problems in relative perspective, but apparently little things can happen that still throw me completely off balance. Talking with Kate helped me feel lighter about the whole thing.

Of course I still feel my obsession with the broken keyboard hovering over my other thoughts. And I never think of myself as a very obsessive person.

I’m typing this using a combination of my phone, speech to text (which is something I didn’t know I could do in WordPress), and copy/pasting all spaces. Itshardtogowithoutspacebarordeleteortab.I’ve learned a lot about replacing a keyboard and exactly why my techie ex-boyfriend used to get upset at me for any drinks being within 10 feet of either of our laptops. I learned that even though I hate typing on a phone, it can be done. Im learning and adapting. I’m trying to laugh at myself and the whole situation.

But I must admit, it’s a challenge. Even at 30. Or maybe even more at 30- I’m attached to a certain thing being around and working well, and when it’s not, a whole week can feel messed up. Or a whole two days that feel like a week.

I think it helps to develop an awareness of the little things that can change your mood completely. So then, when youre upset, you can figure out why and break it down.

What do you think? Are there little things you rely upon that would change your days completely if removed or broken? Can you combat this by talking about it or shedding light on it? Do you find yourself taking seemingly ‘little things’ in your life way too seriously?

 

Did You Get an “Hour” with People you Care About Today?

January 30, 2015 By in Friendships, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As you might have learned from this blog, I love learning about ways to life-hack. Specifically, facts and numbers about how to make my life better. As you can probably guess, I’m subscribed to way too many blogs/newsletters/fan pages of self-help/life-coach gurus and thinkers. I recently got an email with a link to an article by Deepak Chopra titled “Social Media and Your Personal Growth.” The article is worth a read; it’s basically about how to form more meaningful and deep connections when using social media. I was particularly interested in this:

“Psychologists point out that being connected in a positive way for at least one hour a day with people you care about is one key to happiness.”

Do you normally get your hour of this time? I have recently. Today I did, at least. I had a great phone conversation and I felt happy and connected. This “hour” doesn’t have to be in person – you can spend your hour on the phone, or engaged in a video chat, or perhaps just even gchatting online.

It’s fascinating to me that we’re constantly told by doctors and the media that we should exercise a certain amount each day, and eat 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day…But no one talks about setting an exact parameter about social connectivity. So I’d like to propose – get your hour with a close friend(s) a day!

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On Friendship: Louis CK and Marc Maron

January 15, 2015 By in Friendships Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Have you ever listened to the WTF with Marc Maron podcast? If you haven’t yet, you should, because it’s pretty awesome. In a nutshell, Marc Maron is a stand-up comic who interviews other comedians. But that would be an unfair and reductive way to describe it. It’s so much more than that – Maron talks to his guests about deep stuff – there’s a lot of talk about anxiety and depression, and the harder parts of life that we don’t often acknowledge.

One of his episodes is an interview with comedian Louis CK. Slate recently rated this episode the BEST PODCAST EPISODE OF ALL TIME. And with all the crazy hubbub surrounding Serial, this is quite the honor. The episode deals with their 20-something year friendship and the rocky patches it went through – how they fell away from each other for a long stretch of time. Resentments built and tensions formed, miscommunications happened – all the stuff of everyday friendship.

I think the reason the episode resonants with people is that it just feels so true.  That’s the best way I can describe it. Over the course of the 2 hour interview, they take a look at their joint past and begin to re-build their friendship.

Maron had a lot of really insightful words on friendship that I wanted I’d share here. As we’re moving into our thirties, we’re growing as people and so are our friends. As easy as it is to assume we’re the only ones who are changing, our friends are changing too. It’s a never ending evolution, and the advice I tell myself is that we should constantly try to see our friends in a fresh light; to constantly try and almost listen to them like they’re a new friend. Does that make sense?

Here are some quotes from the kick-ass episode that I thought were worth sharing:

“Sometimes when you don’t see someone a lot, you just sort of hold them to who they were when you did know them really well. Like oh that guy must be the same guy.”

Similar sentiment, expressed a bit differently:

“A lot of times, in friendships, you tend the hold the person you’re friends with to the standard of what your friendship was originally.”

“Allowing each other to grow in a friendship is tricky, because there’s part of you that wants to be what you were when you were first friends, there’s part of you that’s wants that, because that’s an innocent place, that’s where the emotion started.”

You can download the episode here.

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Phone a Friend

January 7, 2015 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Phone a Friend

“Have you meditated today? Maybe that would help.”

“I DID meditate, actually. Twice, Jane! I meditated twice already!”

It’s a rare day I meditate twice in a row, especially before noon, but the other day it felt necessary. I woke up in an anxious and out of sorts mood. Ironically, I’d been having a great week. I’d been writing a ton, seeing lots of friends and family, had been off from work for awhile, had run 10 miles the day before, and was blazing through my to do list.

I should be able to calm myself down now that I’m in my thirties, I kept repeating to myself- I should have it together by now- I’m a frigging adult! All my days should be happy and bright! After all, I meditate these days. I’m in the flow of love, dammit!!

But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.

So I called Jane- my trusty co-blogger and best friend- and talked it out. I went through all the reasons I felt anxious…most of which were silly and repetitive. It actually took a lot of digging to get to the reasons- at first I was like I have no idea why I’m anxious..why the hell am I anxious???

But then things started to become clear as I talked.

Do you want me to make you feel better about any of your anxious days and actually list some of the dumb things that were upsetting me? A little schadenfreude for ya? 😉 Ok, for you I will.

  • I was upset that someone asked me to choose a new restaurant and I couldn’t think of one..not the perfect one, anyway. This made me anxious. (I told you…so ridiculous!)
  • I felt like I didn’t meditate ENOUGH…or that I couldn’t absorb my meditations. (Ahh, whyyy??)
  • I felt like there was still so much I. Had. To. Doooo. (And my lists included crazy long items like ‘find your real passion’, ‘go after new sources of income,’ ‘complete hours of online marketing classes,’ ‘discover meaning of life’, etc (okay, maybe not exactly that last one…)
  • I felt like my days off were passing me by and I kept getting sucked into Google and Facebook vortexes (ahh, this STILL upsets me now, haha..)

But when I called Jane and just talked on and on (even when it was repetitive), I started to feel better. I calmed down a bit.

Even though none of the things on my crazy to do list had gotten done while I was talking, and Jane had heard it all before, it just helped to talk.

And it helped to have someone just listening. Happily. Patiently. Again. And again. And again.

Thank you, Jane.

Do you have friends like that? Or maybe a family member? A coworker? Or even a therapist?

I try hard to be that kind of friend. Because I really think it’s everything to be heard when you’re feeling anxious..or even when you just want to talk about nothing. Even if- ESPECIALLY IF- you feel like you’re being repetitive. Or ridiculous.

There are going to be those crazy weird days, even if most days are good…even if you’re a spiritual, flow of love optimist. It’s the way of the world!

So phone a friend when it happens. Talk it out. It may actually make your day better.

  • This is probably not the phone you'd want to use, though.
    This is probably not the phone you’d want to use, though.

The Holidays and the Cult of Busy-ness

December 23, 2014 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , Leave a comment

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you’re enjoying your respite (and hopefully you do get one) with family and friends. I’m back home in NYC and enjoying time with loved ones. While all of this is wonderful and happy-making and I am truly grateful for this time of year…

…Do you ever feel like the holidays can bring some sense of angst? Or that somehow you’re not “doing the holidays right”? I do. There’s this expectation that because it’s holiday time, you must be so incredibly dizzyingly busy that you’re close to burn out. We’re bombarded by that message on TV, in magazines, online, etc. But, I find that I am not exceedingly “busy” and I feel worried that somehow I’m missing out on something great because I’m not so busy. Do I not have enough friends to entertain, not enough invites to holiday parties, not enough presents to buy? Am I missing out on something? Specifically, I think there’s this idea that women in particular must be exceptionally busy to be considered successful – that a woman must be balancing a thousand relationships and obligations at once. But, I’m an introvert and I treasure doing things slowly, savoring time with friends where I’m not distracted and not overextending myself.

Is this “cult of busy-ness” something that begins to happen in your thirties? I’ve found that this idea of being superwoman – managing a career, relationships, children, a home – seems to have become more omnipresent in my thirties.

As a dramatic writer, I often think about the silence in between moments between characters – that space where much is expressed without words. Silence does not mean inaction in a screenplay or stage play. I think this is true in life as well. Being busy and running around fulfilling to-do list check-off items isn’t necessarily more fulfilling than quiet moments of reflection.

So, I wish to you a holiday full of family, friends, and good food – but also, moments of quiet gratitude where you can take in all around you and rejoice.

When I See A Starbucks Red Cup, I Go There

December 18, 2014 By in Friendships, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

I was thinking the other day of what Jane said about beverages. She was writing about ways to save money in your thirties and she mentioned that her major indulgences were beverages of all kinds. A glass of wine or fancy coffee here or there can add up, but they truly brought moments of happiness, so it was difficult to reconcile stopping them to save money.

As we sat sipping margaritas one day, another good friend of mine who follows the blog brought up that same beverage conundrum Jane wrote about. “I love my nice coffees or glasses of wine or margaritas. These little things make me so happy… I like saving money but I’d lose so much happiness now if I deprived myself of occasional nice drinks.”

And random acts of drinkable kindness do indeed bring me joy as well. Here we are in winter, and the need for cheer runs strong. Whenever it’s cold outside and I see a red Starbucks cup, my Pavlovian-trained mind snaps into action, and I feel the strongest urge for the happiest latte. I not only want to go into Starbucks, but I want to buy the sweetest, warmest, most holiday cheer themed beverage that I can hold in my chilled fingers. Better yet, if that drink was bottomless and refilled automatically, I could hold it all day as a warm fixture of my waking hours.

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Starbucks does a great job with their red winter cups- they’re a signal to my psyche that something nice is in the air. I mean, it’s definitely really good branding, and I won’t deny that they’ve trained people well…but I just let myself fall for it. The advent of the holiday cups invites time for ease, comfort, and celebration during a cold and occasionally stressful time of year. Getting myself an occasional holiday red cup coffee from Starbucks transports me to a cozy state of mind.

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I fight so many habits in my life, and I’m always trying to make the “right” food, money, and job decisions. Having a coffee or a glass of wine or even a smoothie or sparkling water with a friend is an indulgence I’m willing to embrace. A happy red cup of coffee can leave me transported. As long as they’re not in total excess, small indulgences can be bonds shared with others or with yourself. As much as I talk about how I love to save money, certain sweet moments of now I don’t want to save for later.

Also, this article was not sponsored by Starbucks. I wish.

We All Have the Same Amount of Time

December 16, 2014 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dear Ones,

Haha, I only started this out by calling you guys ‘Dear Ones’ because it’s something Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ does in her Facebook posts all the time… And honestly, it sort of annoys me. Did it annoy you when I called you a ‘Dear One’? Or did you like it? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I actually LOVE Elizabeth Gilbert, and her Facebook posts just about always make me very happy, but the ‘Dear Ones’ thing just seems…patronizing? Old fashioned? I’m sure she doesn’t mean it that way AT ALL, because she seems like the sweetest person, but it rubs me the wrong way every time I hear it.

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BUT if I can get past that (and I can), she writes some very inspiring mini essays on Facebook. Today she wrote a thought-provoking little post about not giving up the great for the good. She was recounting how there’s always the same amount of time in a day and we usually fill that time with GOOD things- important things that we need to do- such as emails, holiday shopping, jobs, housecleaning, etc. Most of these things are, of course, necessary to life. But then she said that there are GREAT things we can be doing with our days as well, and that we have time for them too.

Now, at this point in her post, I thought Ms. Gilbert was going to go on to explain great things to be ‘travel to Indonesia,’ or ‘learn to code,’or ‘go windsurfing’ or ‘‘volunteer at soup kitchens everywhere,’ or other major activities in a similar vein. Elizabeth Gilbert’s a travel writer and an inspirational speaker after all. I expected great things to equate to major goals I guiltily feel I SHOULD GET TO or want to get around to doing ‘some day.’

But instead her GREAT THINGS were the exact opposite. They included:

  • Going for a long walk or a run alone on the beach, or in the woods, or in the city. (I LOVE doing this! This is, indeed, great!)
  • Going to Target with my best friend for absolutely no reason (YES! I love going to department stores or even grocery stores with my best friend for absolutely no reason. Great!
  • Sitting down at the end of the day with a glass of wine (I do this! I love this! Easy!)
  • Calling my mom just to say hello (So simple. So doable. Yet I don’t always do it.)

 

Sometimes just walking the street can be so happy-making!

Sometimes just walking the street can be so happy-making!

Or spending time with my friend and wandering through stores and to bus stops..

Or spending time with my best friend and wandering through stores …and from bus stop to bus stop

Elizabeth Gilbert’s personal list consisted of activities that…were easy to do. And they provoked simple, easy joy because they were basic little things. And they blew my mind because I already did them! I’d just never considered them ‘great things’ before. But they are. And I don’t recognize them.

Many days, my ‘great things’ slip through the cracks while I anxiously check off a never-ending to do list.

We all have the same amount of time in a day…and we can fit great things into our lives in such doable ways. The requirement is only to recognize those teeny moments of joy and allow ourselves to live them.

Best Things About Being In Your 30s- The Lists

December 11, 2014 By in Career, Friendships, Money, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Ah, the ubiquity of Buzzfeed lists…love ’em or hate ’em, they’re all over Facebook and Twitter, and links to them seem to pop up everywhere. But are Buzzfeed lists (or lists along those lines) just click bait, or can they actually tell us something about our lives?

Jane and I are always looking for lists of descriptive thirties traits, findings and meanings- anything thirties related really- and when we do searches for the thirties, invariably there’s a Buzzfeed list or two right on Google’s front page. So today I read through a Buzzfeed article titled “27 Underrated Things About Being In Your Thirties.”

As I read through a list of statements and memes capturing those statements, I started to feel more and more confused and anxious..mainly because everything seemed so perfectly tied with a big red bow, and my life didn’t seem to be where it should be compared to the list. My god, it’s Buzzfeed! BUZZFEED! Buzzfeed shouldn’t make you upset!  But yet, dammit, it did.

And it wasn’t just me! The comments below were achingly funny and painful..starting with someone saying, “This made me feel a whole lot worse about my life.” Which was followed up by 186 likes and a whole lot of agreement, including “You are not alone, friend. I’m really depressed now about everything every other 30-something is having/doing that I’m not” and “I’m 40, and most of this just made me want to crawl into a hole and die.”

So below are some of the statements that stuck out at me. Try not to want to crawl into a hole and die. You’re not alone, friend 🙂

3. Chances are that you’re making more money now.

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I’m making more money now, yes, but I know a lot of people who aren’t, and this statement still made me nail-bitingly nervous.

4. Which means you can afford actual furniture that’s not from Ikea.

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What? ALL my furniture is from Ikea! Ikea is AWESOME! (Ok, IKEA isn’t awesome, but it is frigging CHEAP!) And what is that Soho loft pictured above with the vintage-chic walls and exposed brick? I mean, come on now!

8. You give zero fucks, so you dance however you want!

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Umm…not yet at that ZERO fucks stage…maybe LESS fucks? And me dancing however I want wouldn’t be good for anyone..

10. At work, you’re not some assistant bitch anymore, you’re a BOSS.

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Though I know people who’ve climbed the career ladder and match this description..I also know lots of people who are assistants, or who still aren’t sure about their career yet.. I am not necessarily a BOSS, though I am self-employed, so maybe this fits me more than I believe..I can play around with it..

12. Any dating you do is less messy, because you know what you want and you demand it.

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Umm, no?

13. And you wind up in much healthier relationships.

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Hmm…this one just feels presumptuous. Also, this is such a random photo! You think it’s the author? Are these people two random celebrities I don’t recognize?

17. You’ve found a group of friends who are the most amazing people you’ve ever met.

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Also a random photo. And I think the author got this idea from a Sex and the City binge…in fact, this photo should’ve been Samantha and Charlotte and Carrie and Miranda. The thirties are where I hear the most gripes about LACK of friendship. People are all like ‘where have my friends gone??’ Umm, babies, marriage, moving, high-stress jobs, people giving ZERO fucks…these things steal friends…

24. You’re no longer afraid of change…

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Damn it, change is STILL the the boogeyman in the closet for me! The people who aren’t scared of change don’t know the horrors of when it jumps out and grabs you! It’s so big and bad and mean sometimes…

I’m only sort of kidding here… but change still = mucho scary.

But all jokes aside, when it comes to figuring out what the thirties are to you, I want to just say: Beware of Buzzfeed lists! And stereotypes! And bragging disguised as positivity! And funny memes that are actually bragging disguised as positivity hidden in sadness wrapped in stereotype! (As fun as they may sometimes be.)

Sending Hundreds of Invites to Your 30th Birthday

November 30, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , Leave a comment

There’s this NY Times article that both normalizes the 30th birthday and simultaneously makes it a lot more intimidating.

The writer starts by letting us know that the 30th birthday has now become an occasion to celebrate, complete with champagne and festivities. There’s no more need to be embarrassed or to hide from this landmark birthday. Great news! The 30th has become a cool rite of passage-  the contemporary sweet 16.

Then the article takes a strange turn and inflates the birthday party to epic proportions, with celebrations so huge that entire Facebook friend lists are invited from different stages of life (the piece is from 2003, so FB isn’t referenced…but 600+ people were invited to these birthday parties using some means of communication…and I’m impressed this was done without Facebook, actually). For some of the parties, there are invitees from the “life stage”s of age 0-6, 6-18, College, Post-College, and Work. These behemoth blowouts strike me as more overwhelming than the 30th birthday itself.

I mean, I’m glad that 30th birthdays are getting to be more cause for celebration than intimidation, but I don’t think that making my birthday party into a networking event would make it any more fun. In fact, that kind of party seems terribly uncomfortable. I don’t think I’d know what to say to the hundreds of people I hadn’t spoken to in years. That is, if they even showed up.

I’m happy to celebrate with the same close group of friends I always celebrate with. For me, having my favorite people still with me after all this time is good cause for a party.

The Secret Lives of Your Friends – Their Jobs

November 23, 2014 By in Career, Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How much do you know about the nitty gritty of what your friends do at work? When you think about it, this is where your friends spend most of their waking hours. And it’s funny how we probably don’t know much about what compromises their days. Phone calls, meetings, emailing, all of that stuff, sure. But what aspect of their job do they love the most? What gets them excited to get through the day?

When we first graduated college, office jobs were something of a novelty, and I remember emailing my friends several times a day with updates from cubicle-land. “I just got inter-officed an envelope. Awesome.” “OMG, my boss is crazy.” “Ughhhh….so bored right now. Need a coffee.”

But as we inched into our late twenties and early 30’s, the emails stopped as we became more focused and dedicated to our work. Now, while I know my friends’ job titles, I don’t know the specifics of their day. I love specifics. Call me nosy, but I want to know what a typical hour of their day looks like.

Well today I got to visit Laura at work and see what her job is like. She was visiting Southern California, where she was working as a Product Specialist for Ford Motors at the LA Auto Show. Laura’s job is a mixture of marketing and sales and it was pretty fascinating to see her in action. She travels across the country, presenting the new products to consumers. She’s interacting with consumers all day and getting sales leads. It’s also exciting to see what a non-office job really looks like. I think it’s pretty great that she doesn’t have to sit tied to a computer screen all day.

Here’s some pictures from my visit today.

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Laura and I in the crazy big Ford truck. Not sure which one this was.

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My dude, Me and Laura in front of the underside of a Ford Mustang

Making Friends When You’re in a Long Term Relationship

November 22, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Let me preface all of this by saying, I love female friendship. I’m kind of obsessed with it, actually. From the popular Sex and the City and Golden Girls to the less well-known Walking and Talking and Heavenly Creatures, I’ve seen EVERY movie and TV show about female friendships. Maybe it’s me being an only child and craving siblings, but I find these friendships to be deeply sustaining and life-affirming.

But I realized that since I’ve been in a relationship, about five and a half years, I haven’t made many super close girlfriends. I’ve made a lot of acquaintances, but not as many really close pals. It might simply be more challenging to meet new friends in your thirties, or it’s just plain harder when you’re in a serious relationship. Most likely, it’s a combination of both of these things. But for me, there’s one more element that I think is a factor.

Talking about boys.  In high school and college, I bonded with a lot of my friends by talking about boys and dating. I don’t feel like less of a feminist for saying that I love talking about these subjects, because I enjoy talking to my female friends about other subjects too. But one of the ways I bonded with new female friends was over men. This may just be my personality, because I was the girl who ALWAYS talked about her crushes or my fear that I would never meet that special someone.

I think it touches on something deeper, though. Talking about love and dating is really intimate; it’s not just superficial talk. You expose yourself, share your hopes for the future and that’s vulnerable. When I would share a story about my crush with a new friend, most of the time, she would share her own romantic adventures with me, and often, a friendship was born. I suppose I could share stories from my relationship now, but honestly it would almost feel like a betrayal to share anything negative about my relationship to new friends, since we’ve been dating for so long.

Now I feel like I’m more of a listener, and less of a contributor to these conversations about dating, and it makes me a little nostalgic for the old days. I don’t have stories involving crazy dates, or the drunk dial from the ex I still care about,  or the cute co-worker who I kissed once…And since I met my boyfriend before the boom of Tinder, I’m bummed that I can’t share my own adventures in swiping left and right.

But I guess you trade one thing for another. I wouldn’t want to go back to dating lots of new people just for the stories I could share with my new girlfriends. It’s about finding fresh meaningful ways to connect with recent women friends….quilting, anyone?

How To Be a Third Wheel

November 19, 2014 By in Friendships, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The other day I went to a Barbecue in upstate New York. It was hosted by a close friend of mine and her boyfriend. When I got there, my friend said to me apologetically, “you’re going to meet a lot of people you don’t know.” What she didn’t mention was “you’re going to meet a lot of people you don’t know…and all of their significant others who you also don’t know.”

Once I went inside, I figured out that everyone at the BBQ was either married or engaged. And I felt very, very single. And very much like a third wheel.

This made me want to hide.

This made me want to hide away. At home. Somewhere inside my hoodie.

I didn’t realize that married and engaged couples would become the majority once I turned thirty. When I was in my twenties and would go to parties, I seem to remember a fair mix of singles and couples present. I also remember lots of alcohol being thrown down, and lots of stumbling home at 3am…or later. Was it a different world back then? After the BBQ this month, I caught the Metronorth back to Queens at the wee hour of 7pm (!)…with a nice newlywed couple who held hands as they told me the story of how they met.

To be fair, I was half of a couple for just about the entirety of my twenties…a serial monogamist from 21 to 29. And I basically saw the world of my twenties through ‘couple-eyes’ (yes, this is a thing)…which for me then meant: half of a couple = the definition of who I am.

So I didn’t totally get the whole third wheel stigma thing.

When I was part of a couple, I actually loved hanging out with single friends. I mean, it was fun to double date, but when I had a single friend hang out with me and my boyfriend at the time, I loved it just as much. All I wanted was for my friend to feel welcome and comfortable, single or not. A third wheel has this strange solo definition- they’re an extra piece- suddenly we have… a tricycle? A whole new entity. But that entity doesn’t have to be bad. I never thought it was bad before.

Of course, I very much understand the third wheel stigma- ‘couple-alone-time’ is important (as much as regular alone-time)- and a third person tagging along uninvited to a date night walk along the beach would probably not be the best. But the key word here is ‘uninvited.’ When you’re a third person invited along with a couple, you’re not a tag-along, you’re a guest. You’re a friend.

But when I first became single again, a few months ago, I didn’t feel like a guest. No matter how much a couple tried to make me feel included, I felt like I was invading their space and time. I felt like a lonely half who needed another. A missing piece. An extra part.

It took me awhile to remember how much I enjoyed hanging with single people when I was half of a couple…how much I wanted them to NOT feel like third wheels. It took me awhile to remember that they weren’t third wheels to me then…I saw them as full people- totally complete on their own. It’s weird how hard it is to see yourself the way you see others. Why would a couple be better than a single? What does that even mean?

I didn’t end up having a bad time at the barbecue. I’ll admit, I felt sad at first…wistful for coupledom. But then I started to have fun, once I settled in. I began to ask questions. I talked to my friend…and her boyfriend. I relaxed and ate barbecue. And I started to let go of looking at myself as an extra. I listened to stories… how couples met, where they lived, what they did. I enjoyed my ride home on the Metronorth with the newlyweds, who had a great first-meeting story and were both super nice. And I stopped feeling like a third wheel. And I stopped feeling alone. I didn’t feel like half a couple. I just felt like me.

 

 

Friendship Changes in Your Thirties

October 4, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: Leave a comment

Five years ago, I was 27. When I think back to that time, I realize that I still have the same group of close friends now. We may not see each other that often because of living across the country from each other, or having children or marriages that demand time and responsibility, or a host of other reasons. But when we reconnect, the closeness always feels there, though the frequency of our communication  has shifted over the years, ebbing and flowing.

But, when I think back to when I was 23 and to who my friends were then, I realize the circle was quite different and I’ve lost about three very close friends. One was about a specific incident, one happened because we simply changed and faded away from each other, and the other one was somewhat inexplicable. It lowered my self esteem for years; I wondered what was wrong with me – had I changed in some profound way that made me unlikeable? Was something fundamentally wrong with me because I couldn’t keep lifelong friendships?

I’ve found none of the above to be true. Actually, what I’ve found seems to happen in your early-mid twenties is a kind of subconscious friendship purge. As you go through your twenties, you change rapidly and your friends starting to reflect the changes in your life. You’ve brought a lot of baggage from your “college self” and your “adolescent self” into your twenties and you’re shedding it as you move through that decade of your life- and your friendships are bound to reflect that shedding process.

Now that I’m 32, I feel like the close friends I have now will remain close in the future. Once you get to your early 30’s, you’ve weeded out most of the people that just aren’t working for you.

In your thirties, you start to realize you really need to be uplifted from your friends. Toxicity just won’t do. Life is too short for people who don’t celebrate you. I love this quote from Mother Teresa- and it’s applicable to friendships:

 “Let no one ever come to you without leaving you better and happier.” – Mother Teresa