👋You're a really good friend
It's Monday. I'm Here for You.
Friendship is so complicated that it often keeps me up at night.
I fret over a sentence I said to someone as a joke and worry that it’s dented our relationship for good.
I replay a coffee date with a new pal and wonder if they thought it went as good as I did.
I think about a friend I’ve known forever and wish that she knew me better than she does. Why doesn’t she? Well, sometimes it’s hard for people to update their impression of us when they’ve known you through eras. Sometimes we only show them the outdated version because it’s familiar and we know it’ll get applause.
I only made really good friends for the first time in my life when I was in my mid-twenties and for the second time in my early thirties. Before that, I’d do anything for friendship in the desperate and delusional way someone should never be.
I’d lie, cheat, steal just to be included on the invite list for a fourth grade birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I’d morph myself into whatever it took just to land a seat at the popular girl’s table in middle school. Looking back, I never quite made it, but I did, quite often, pull up a chair and sit behind them, as if they wanted me there.
I was invisible to the people I called my friends.
So when I finally made good friends in life, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I had spent 20-something years begging for besties. Now that I had them, I didn’t want to lose them, but of course I did.
Welcome to the Monday Pick-Me-Up. I wouldn’t be first on the list to win friend of the year but I am obsessed with friendship and being better at it. So let me air my mistakes.
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Friendship is as complicated as you are.
If you are one of the lucky ones, you learn early on the truth about friendship:
It is one of the most special things that can happen in a person’s lifetime.
I was not one of the lucky ones.
I had a best friend when I was younger but she told all of my deepest darkest secrets to the entire fifth grade class, spread rumors about me, and when she got invited to the popular girl’s table, she pretended that she didn’t know who I was anymore.
When we were alone, she’d tell me that I was the one true friend she had and that we’d be friends for the rest of our lives, and I believed her, because I wanted it to be true.
Most of the friends I made after that, I kept at a distance. We’d go to the movies and talk about boys and save each other seats at the lunch table but that was it. Finally, I fit in, so I tight rope walked through those friendships to make them last. I didn’t ask for help or open up. I was there for them but I refused to let them be there for me.
That worked out great for me until it didn’t. Because in your 20’s, friendships that are filled with marshmallow fluff will harden and grow mold.
I became so tight-lipped about what was going on in my real life that some of my friends got tired of playing detective to figure out why I was ignoring their texts and crying in my room. The best friend I had made at 21 told me at 28 that she wan’t nothing to do with me anymore and it broke my heart in the way that it needed to because I finally realized that this game I was playing of don’t say too much, don’t be too much wasn’t ever going to lead me closer to friendship it was only going to lead me closer to being alone forever with my deepest and darkest thoughts.
From 28 to 35, I have made new friendships in the way I wish I could have at the age of 7.
Here’s why I think that happened:
First, because of sheer luck. I was in the right place, at the right time, and met a few outstanding people who felt like soul mates. Luck is 25% of friendship. Timing is another 25%. The rest of the 50% is a mishmash of gobbledygook.
Second, I swore to just be myself. As you get older, you care less about hiding your truths. You realize you’re running out of time to live life and you might as well live it as you are. I wanted friends who knew the real version of me. I had never really shown that before. Even now, I hide it a little until I slip and say something that I really mean and wait to see how the other person feels about it. Opening up more and being who I really am around new people has reminded me that some people will think you are too much of something and not enough of something else. That’a okay. Rule #2425 about friendship is that most people you meet aren’t meant to be your lifelong friend anyway. At 35, I am self-aware enough to know my quirks, my oddities, my things, and I make a solid effort not to hide them anymore when I make new friends. Because of that, I’ve made a few really incredible best friends in my 30’s who know the truest version of me. It is such a freeing feeling. One of the best.
Mistakes I am still making in friendship and hoping to stop:
#1: Waiting too long to start a friendship because I’m scared and shy. this is my biggest friendship regret. I look at some of the newer friends I have and think about how I’m such an idiot because we could have been friends sooner, for longer, if I wasn’t so terrified of meeting new people and creating friendships from scratch. All of these people made an effort and reached out multiple times for plans and I pushed them away because a part of me is still 15 attempting to keep people at a distance so they don’t hurt my feelings.
#2: Not initiating plans because I’m scared and shy. I realize that in all of my friendships, I am never the one to initiate plans. I wait for people to invite me places because I’m too worried that If I invite them to do something that I’m being annoying or clingy or they might be busy but feel forced to say yes (clearly I need to get over friendship trauma from the past). I am trying to work on this.
#3: Witholding information because I am scared and shy. One of my conversation superpowers is that I can talk to someone for 30-minutes and make the chat entirely about them and not reveal one detail about myself. I do this because I’m a little shy and I like to avoid awkward conversation but it’s harmful because then I don’t give the other person a chance to get to know me and the friendship becomes lopsided. I am working on this by being aware and after asking the person 10 back-to-back questions, sharing something personal about myself.
#4: Getting upset when friendships change. How close you are with a person changes based on so many things and sometimes a person who was by your side for years becomes a person you hardly speak to anymore and when you do it’s very surface level and kind of boring. That used to make me upset but I realized that friendships move in seasons, like so much of our lives, and those relationships might live on forever, but they might look and feel 10 different ways during that time.
In the last year, I wasn’t such a great friend. Motherhood really took a lot out of me. I have 300 missed calls, probably 45 unanswered test messages, and I promised three different people I’d make plans with them in April and I haven’t given them a date. I also missed a best friend’s wedding this year, didn’t visit two of my long distance besties that I miss terribly, and fell asleep at the dinner table, twice, when out of town friends visited me because of baby sleep regressions.
But even still, none of those friends walked out on me this year. None of them even sat me down and said: get it together or you won’t keep your seat at our table, Jen. It was one of the hardest years of my life. I turned inward a lot because I didn’t have the energy to ask or receive help from the people I love the most. Yet it proved to me that you don’t need to be perfect to have really good friends. You just need to be human, honest, and if you have the right people in your life, they will stay, even when you’re a sleep deprived brain fog of a mess, they will stay.
⚡Instant Pick Me Ups
📚: Loved two of her other books so giving this one a read.
🎵: Fun background music to play on repeat
🍔:I’m doing a lot of meal prepping for Gemma because she needs to eat three real meals a day (and two snacks) so I figured I’d start doing the same for myself too. I bought these to make the process easier.
👖:Pink jeans seem fun for the spring and summer. These fit surprisingly well and are on sale.
🚿:A fun way to redecorate your bathroom is to swtich out the rugs. It can change the whole vibe, make it cozy, and just make it all feel refreshed. I grabbed this one.
💇♀️:Borrowed my friend’s this weekend to test it out and it worked great. My hair looked like I had it professionally styled.
Ps. a full list of pick-me-ups are right here.
😮 Progress Report:
We celebrated Gemma’s first birthday on Thursday. It was such a sweet day and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I have been a mom for one whole year. Wow. I never felt ready to be a mom and everyone always said: it will come naturally! listen to your gut. But I swear, the second I birthed Gemma, my gut took a hike or something because it really hasn’t been helpful this year at all. A lot of what has gotten me through this year are cliches. It is true that everything is temporary. I repeat that a lot. It’s also true that you can learn deeply from your mistakes. Finally, I’d like to thank Google and also other mom friends who answered every question I had, even in the middle of the night. Being a mom is really tough but not much is better than seeing love from your baby ooze out of her over the year.
I’m really into cooking and baking right now because Gemma is transitioning to eating more food and I want her to eat more than what I eat (pizza) so I’m making it a goal to cook almost every recipe from this website. It’s all vegan which I think makes it easier to cook (at least for me) because there are less steps and ingredients. Everything is super tasty.
Ps. Today is the day Goofy (the dog) came home to Brooklyn, four years ago, and became the absolute love of my entire life. Read that story here.
My birthday is next Monday! Yes, I was born on April Fool’s day :) What topic do you want me to write about in next week’s newsletter?
Why you’re getting this: I'm Jen Glantz and this is The Monday Pick-Me-Up newsletter. I've been sending it every Monday, for 9-years, to thousands of awesome humans, just like you. Thank you for letting this email live in your inbox. It truly makes my heart explode with joy.
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