You need people (& people need you)

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It took me 22 years to find a best friend.

A real best friend.

Before that, I had friends and we'd laugh about our inside jokes and make plans for Friday nights and try on each other's secrets like they were jeans from Abercrombie that we'd forget to give back.

But there was no best friendship going on there.

Best friendship is something I know I only found later in my life but it's something I can easily explain.

It's being in a friendship with someone and feeling like you can take the biggest exhale ever. Like the air from your small intestine might travel all the way up your body and out of your mouth when you're beside them because you feel comfortable — to be who you are, to say what you want to say, and to tell them about things that are contagious in how bad they sting.

However, one of the biggest lessons I've learned in friendship is this:

That sometimes best friendships fall apart and often when they do it's because we've made a big mistake.

👋 Welcome to the Monday Pick-Me-Up. I think it's a big mistake in life to think every friend of yours has the capacity to love you in the same way. Some friends are there for a certain single segment of your life. Other friends can juggle multiple segments. Very few, rare, and almost unicorn-like friends can handle it all.

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You need people (& people need you)

Around this time of year, I do something called a "friendship inventory," where I intentionally write down every single friend I have. This ranges from people I call my best friends to those I've met just a few times this year but have enjoyed their company. I do this because on tough days, it's easy to think you have nobody at all, and on good days, it's easy to think life is in your favor and you don't really need anyone. But it's important on all the other days in between to know who you have in your life and where you stand with these people.

Friendship is the trickiest relationship to navigate because there aren't any clear-cut rules. In a romantic relationship, each person feels like they know what they should and shouldn't do -- I shouldn't lie to a person I love, I should stand by their side, I should let them know I plan to be with them in the far-off future -- those kinds of things.

But in a friendship, it's all so blurry. It starts with "Hi, I'm Jen," that weeks later might lead to "I'm Jen, and I live down the street from you." More weeks later, it's "Want to grab coffee?" Then, what feels like four months later, it's "Let's try the happy hour at this new spot." Sometimes there's nothing at all for like a year until you bump into each other again and trauma-bond over losing your jobs, hoping that's enough of a spark to actually have a meaningful friendship that evolves from bad-mouthing ex-bosses to talking about the reasons you're so socially awkward in big groups of people.

Friendship is the most casual relationship we have in our lives, and yet it's often the most important and meaningful.

Years ago, after one of my first best friends broke up with me out of the blue and said she didn't want to be friends anymore, I felt broken for months. There I was at 20-something, fresh into what should have been my best friendship decade, losing one of the first best friends I actually made. I convinced myself that you have to be a super shitty person to have a best friend break up with you. Years (I'm talking YEARS) later, I realized that's not true.

Was I too self-absorbed? Did I not read between the lines and find ways to be there for her without her having to ask? Was I too worried about being someone else's friend that I didn't spend quality time nurturing my relationship with her? Was she just over me as a person? Had I become too annoying for her to put up with?

I'll probably never know why she packed up and left my life, and it's taken me years to be okay with that.

But during those years, I've started to be much more aware of how I treat the people I call my friends. I have become obsessed with figuring out how to become a better friend.

That's why every year in September, I do a friendship inventory.

Here's what I do:

1. I write a list of everyone I consider a friend. These are people I feel I have a relationship with. People I care about and who have made an effort to show they care about me.

2. I write a score next to the person's name, from 1-5. This score represents how good of a friend I think I've been to them this year. Did I reach out to say hello? Did I make an effort to see them or talk to them? Did I go above and beyond for them? Did I make them feel loved, supported, respected, and heard? There aren't a lot of 5's...there are so many 3's.

3. Then I give myself feedback. How could I have been better to that person? Do I want to continue to nurture this friendship? Is there anything I did wrong to them this year? And so much more. It's usually 3-4 sentences per person.

4. On the other side of the paper, I write down what kind of friend they've been to me in the past year. Did they make an effort? Did they show that they wanted to still be my friend? Then I also remember that everyone - every single person - has a myriad of internal struggles we don't always know about. So before I get down about a person or our friendship, I think about that and I think about what I can do to reach out to them and show them love, make an effort, attempt to repair the friendship - etc.

5. To close out the inventory, I write 1-2 actions I can take, per person, to be a better friend to them.

I know this inventory might sound weird or odd - or even just a lot to do. But friendship doesn't always have as clear rules or boundaries as a romantic relationship often does.

We don't always express to our friends how much they mean to us. We don't always know the right way to end a friendship, so we end it all wrong.

This inventory is my way of checking in, of slowing down, of shining perspective on the people in my life so that I never, ever again take anyone for granted.

All my love,

Jen Glantz

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Instant Pick Me Ups

📖: I love this author’s style and am reading two of her books at once — this is the one I’m halfway done with and love tremendously.

😊: Obsessed with:

• These shoes. Still. I wear them ever day and feel like they elevate any outfit.

• Got these long sleeves in a few colors. They are 50% less than the same ones at Lululemon or Alo.

🎵: A fun cover of a popular song.

📝: Ps. if you (or anyone you know) needs a wedding speech this season (vows, officiant, maid of honor/best man, father/mother of bride/groom, sister/brother of the bride/groom) — I built these really awesome speech writing tools. Also, a eulogy tool (though I hope nobody you know needs to use that).

⏰: Random reminder to call your bank and ask them to remove any fees that you’ve acquired over the last few months (overdraft fees, etc.). Sometimes they will and it’s a great feeling to get back the $15-$250 in fees you accumulated.

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😊 My Real Life:

• Well, we are moving at the end of this month. I’ve written a lot about this tiny little one bedroom in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn that I love so much. We grew out of this apartment years ago and most people said that there was nooo way we could have a baby in this place and that we would be out within 6-months of Gemma being here. She’s 18-months and we somehow made it work. I will miss every single thing about this apartment and I know that sounds silly but this place has meant so much to me in the past five years. I’ll tell you more about why soon and also about where we are moving to. Spoiler alert: we aren’t moving very far but there’s a catch to where we are moving.