I basically had no friends for the first 35 years of my life. Then my husband dropped a truth bomb I did not ask for, and everything changed…
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Transcript: Friends, But Make It Superficial
So I essentially had no friends for the first 35 years of my life. And if you know me now, that seems pretty improbable. And actually, on the outside, it kind of seemed like I did have a lot of friends.
You know, by friends, you mean that I hung out with people, and people called me their friend, and we went out and did things together, and we were friendly, and I liked them, and they liked me. Yeah, yeah, I had friends. But I wouldn't really say I had friends the way I define friends now.
And this really actually struck me when my husband said something to me that cut me to my core. But before I tell you about that, I'm going to tell you what happened right before that happened, which was that I had five kids in six years.
I had been an overachiever, perfectionist my whole life, and I got to eight years of being pregnant, breastfeeding or both, and I just completely cracked. And in that place where I completely cracked and I just wanted out of my life, I was a hot, hot mess. I mean, dark night of the soul, messy all over the place, basically questioning everything. Like: I married the wrong guy. I wasn’t supposed to have these kids. I'm in the wrong place.
I did marry the right guy, by the way—completely the right guy. But in that moment, I was just so done with meeting everyone else's expectations that I just cracked, and I wanted out of my life at all costs.
And here's where I get to the friendship part. The thing that was fascinating about that moment was that I came so close to losing everyone I loved—but I told nobody. I didn’t tell my mother, I didn’t tell my father, I didn’t tell my brother, I didn’t tell a single friend. I confided in nobody.
And at the time, it seemed so normal, because that's how I'd been raised—to just keep it all in. Never air your dirty laundry with anyone else. I had kind of been raised to just manage it inside. And in that moment, it felt normal. But looking back, I realized: wow, I had no one to talk to. Or—it didn’t even occur to me to go talk to anyone. I have a feeling if I had, there would have been plenty of people willing to listen.
And so the thing that my husband said that really cut me—but cut me in a great way, because it helped me see something I hadn’t seen before—was: “You have no friends. You confide in no one.”
I was like, “I have friends!” I was kind of offended. “I have friends! Look at so-and-so and so-and-so. They like me, I like them, I care for them, I love them, they love me.”
He said, “Yeah, but you don’t confide in them. And to me, a friend is someone you trust enough to confide in.”
And I was like—whoa. I think you might be right. I know people. I like them, they like me. But I don’t have a real friend. Because a friend is someone who you share yourself with. Who you actually show yourself to. Who you confide in, in your darkest moments.
And so at that point, after that dark night of the soul, I vowed that that was not going to be my future. It was my past—that I was walking through life alone and not sharing anything with anybody—but it was not going to be my future.
I had this moment where I had a flash of an image of me on my deathbed—crazy, I know, I don’t know where these things come from—but I was on my deathbed, and I was surrounded by the people I loved, with no regrets about my life. And I vowed at that moment I was going to start now to create that reality for myself.
Because it really occurred to me in the same moment—when I said, this is how I want to be at the end of my life, surrounded by the people I love, with no regrets—I had this very strong sentence come to me: If I want that, I must start now to design the life I want.
And so that’s what I’ve been doing since then.
And so much of what I’ve been doing since then is doing the exact opposite of what I had been raised to do—which was keep things inside, just manage them, and don’t share them with anybody. I’ve been doing the opposite, which is: sharing stuff out loud. This is what this is a part of.
And I realized in that process that the connections I have forged and the friendships that I have—I can now confidently say that I have many deep, powerful friendships. People who I trust to confide in, who I create space for to confide in me.
And those relationships, because I’m willing to share my deepest, darkest—are so supportive and wonderful.
And so I realized a couple of really important things in that process. One is that we can build the life we want, full of connection and support and deep community.
I think there are so many people who identify as really lonely—or, if they really look at their life, feel like: yeah, I might be surrounded by people, but I’m pretty lonely actually. That is not a life sentence. We can change that. Because I did.
I mean, I was lonely. Deeply lonely. I was alone with the darkest moments in my life. But we don’t have to stay that way. We can build a life of connection and support.
But I also realized something else: it doesn’t happen on its own. We have to be proactive about it. We have to decide that’s what we want.
And so, so much of what I’ve done over the last 10 years is design my life—and my work, frankly—to solve for: What is the reality I want to find myself in?
I want to be surrounded by people who are smart and caring and interesting and have the capacity to be connected in this way with me. And I have gone out and courted them.
There are a couple of people whom I even saw on a podcast or saw online, and I was like, “She’s really cool. I want to be her friend.” And I sort of stalked them—not in a gross, weird way—but I kind of stalked them. I was like, Who do they know? Who do I know? Who can introduce me to them?
I was proactive about going out and meeting and connecting with women I thought: Yeah. I really dig you. There’s something about you that makes me want to be closer to you.
And so it doesn’t happen on its own. We need to be proactive.
And midlife, I think, is particularly suited to this. This can happen at any time in your life, but I think midlife is particularly suited to it, because we’re a little bit over the things that we were so focused on in our 20s and 30s—you know, appearances and climbing a ladder and keeping up with the Joneses.
Maybe we’ve done all of that, and we know a little bit more about who we are and what we want. And I don’t know about you, but what I want is to be surrounded by people I love, doing the things I love.
And so I actually joke with my friends all the time about the women’s commune that I want to build. Because, you know, the truth is—sorry guys—but we outlive the guys. Women live longer. And at some point, we are going to be maybe by ourselves. Or even if we have a partner or a spouse, I fantasize about this place where we just have kind of a mutual understanding: I’ll take care of you if you take care of me.
And so we joke about the women’s commune, and that there’s going to be a pottery corner—because I’m really into crafting. There’s gonna be a crochet corner. There’s gonna be so much fiber work, and so much thread happening.
We’re gonna, you know, swim every day. Maybe we’ll do a little surfing.
And so I joke about it with my friends, but actually—I’m not really joking. I’m not kidding. And women will often say, “Sign me up!” And I’m like, “Great! If I build it, they will come.” People want this.
But the point is: it’s got to be built. And so this commune in my mind—it’s happening. It’s absolutely happening. And it might not be a physical place, but it’s going to be a reality for me. That I have created for myself a community and a network of people who know each other, who love each other, and are committed to being there for each other and creating the support network that we all need to thrive.
And people are like, “Sign me up!” Because there’s a reason it doesn’t exist: it has to be built. It takes intention and effort, and it needs to be prioritized.
And so that’s my plan. To create that for myself and for my people.
And Voicenotes From a Friend is a part of that. Because I want that life for myself—but I want that life for others also. A place where they can feel connected and in community.
And so this is my invitation for you: to think about the life you want. The way you want to feel. The way you want to be surrounded by community.
And maybe, if that feels far away, to say: I think I can have that. But we’ve got to start now, women. We’ve got to start now, building that for ourselves.
And you being here is so much a part of that for me. So thank you, as always, for being with me.
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