#57: adult friendships can be so fucking hard
romeo + juliet thoughts and my biggest regret to date
hi hi hi sisters ♡ I really get to typing away in the adulting section so lets keep this intro brief!! hope you had a good week. fall is in absolute FULL SWING right now and I am jumping for joy
continuing on for the next little bit I want to keep the recommendations section to recommendations for different substacks that I read. I find it to be really important to support small “businesses” (that sounds odd to use here, but maybe influencers is another word I can use?) and one way I can do that is by sharing about them!
she doesnt write often and I am begging her to write more, but my dear friend
has a little substack where she writes just whats on her mind. idk how to explain it but its lovely and I need more of it. ty
movies: finally got around to seeing beetlejuice beetlejuice. it was so silly and funny and a good solid sequel all around. the last 3 minutes though were SO weird. glad I got to watch it in october. ALSO I went and saw anora with a group of friends. I have been waiting to see this movie since may. so not as long as it has felt like but still, I have been WAITING to see it. and I loved it honestly. the main actress was PHENOMENAL and I cannot wait to see her in more films.
broadway: I took myself out on a little solo date and saw the new broadway show, romeo + juliet starring kit connor and rachel zegler. was it phenomenal or what?!? (spoiler alert, it very much was) WOWIE truly it was such a good production! rachel zegler is beautiful gorgeous stunning funny charming and kit connor holy cannoli he was the standout honestly. like I cannot wait to see that boy in more roles. his perfect little british accent quoting shakespeare was perfection. and he played frantic and in love perfectly. the stage and interactiveness was so cool. ALSO I loveddddd the actress that played tybalt and the nurse (there were a lot of dual roles) and the queerness that the play was given space for. if you have the chance and the funds go see it !!!
in my mind: honestly my mind has been pretty much consumed by MPRE study these days with some interlude of reading the life impossible by matt haig before I go to bed or while on the subway.
in my stomach: I have a friend in town right now and I love taking advantage of when friends are visiting to take them to my favorite food places in the city. I feel less guilty of not trying new places on my list and I get to enjoy the yummy places I think about all the time haha
we are finally talking about friendships yall. its been something ive wanted to write about for a long time, and i still have so many thoughts swirling through my mind, so this is not the end of this discussion at all.
if there is a truth I have learned in my 20s, it is this: there is beauty and difficulty in adult friendships; they can be some of the most rewarding relationships to have and yet still be met with deep rooted complications
growing up i didnt have a lot of close friends. and I have been incredibly insecure about friendships my whole life because of it. i had a set of sisters that were my childhood best friends, like we have been friends from the womb because our moms were best friends in high school. despite never going to the same school or living in the same neighborhood, cydney and corey1 have seen every single stage of my life, and will continue to be in my life for forever. but beyond them, i didnt have a lot of close friends, or even friends in general(?)- I had an elementary school best friend (who I have reconnected with while being in new york city) and then I had another best friend for my junior and senior year of high school. i also had a best friend from my mission and a couple of years after, BUT we went through an incredibly hard friend breakup (more to come on that in just a sec). in spite of these random one off best friendships, I never, ever, EVER had a group of friends that were mine. it wasnt until college that I was privileged enough to gain a best friend group.
okay back to the friend breakup; it was a truly really horrid experience. don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly necessary, but it was damn difficult. this happened in 2019 and I think since them I have viewed friendships in a completely different way, for better or for worse. I have realized how fickle friendships can be and how they can turn sour in what can feel like a split second. when looking back however you realize that there were signs all along though. I have also been on the sidelines of some nasty friend breakups as well, and its not fun to watch your group of friends kind of fall apart. these experiences have equally made me more grateful for the friendships I continue to have and also become almost petrified and frozen in fear of them ending or me saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. in these situations I almost self-sabotage and force something to happen to further perpetuate the idea that I am the problem and that none of my friendships stick around. such a fun cycle right?!
don’t get me wrong here, I recognize that friendships and relationships in general weave in and out of your life and that every relationship has a purpose, for you or for them. sometimes friendships end because of circumstances of moving across the country or going to different middle schools or romantic relationships start to take precedent. I get that life happens, but a true true true friend breakup, now that stings like shit.
just like all relationships, adult friendships take work. but work requires time and patience, two things that are hard to come by as you get older and busier. and if you add the barrier of distance and different time zones, these relationships require even more work. work isnt always a bad thing and that doesnt mean that i’m saying that because a friendship requires work that means that its hard and shouldnt happen per say, but just that it is work. and thats not even including the work it takes to make friendships, this is really just about maintaining a friendship you already have.
platonic love has been and will continue to be some of the most beautiful and rewarding feelings i think I have been able to experience in my life. there is no obligation to have a friend, or to be in a friendship with someone, or to care for this person like you care for your family. and that is what makes it so lovely. but that is what also can make it feel so finite. because there is no obligation. theres no societal expectation to maintain a friendship for decades like there is with family. and with that comes the somewhat inevitable reality of (a lot of) friendships ending, whether through circumstances, words said or unsaid, or through a decided state of this relationship coming to a close.
this wont be the last tidbit on friendships, i feel like most of my thoughts flow through my brain so eloquently when i’m not at a computer, so when it comes time to sitting down and typing i have to rake through bad sentences in order to portray the words i am trying to convey. I think next time (or the time after) I write about friendships I want to talk about group friendships because living in new york and being part of the mormon friend community I have seen just how damaging it can be to have friends that know everyone and everyone being so intertwined into the lives of each other… but thats for another week ♡
but for now, send a text to your friends saying that you love them, because trust me, that reassurance and words of affirmation can really help a friend who deals with anxious thoughts. but I know it can also just be a nice text to receive at any point.
tiktok: if I did not have a boyfriend who I am deeply in love with, this would have been my strategy; I will forever be kicking myself in the butt for not going to this;
pinterest:
instagram: like I said, KICKING MYSELF IN THE BUTT; thin skin girly forever and always; romeo + juliet was everything
GO VOTE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT BECAUSE IT QUITE FRANKLY DOES FOR SO MANY PEOPLE AND ITS NOT JUST ABOUT VOTING FOR THE NEXT 4 YEARS BUT ITS ALSO ABOUT VOTING BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT CAN MAKE DECISIONS IN THE NEXT 4 YEARS THAT IMPACT OUR NEXT 75+ YEARS !!!!!!
the cutie girls in my picture for this week’s writings
"platonic love has been and will continue to be some of the most beautiful and rewarding feelings i think I have been able to experience in my life." HUGE agree