The Trouble With Friends
and other things that are saving me
This essay: The Trouble With Friends
Over fries, caesar salad and seared tuna on a bed of shishitos (to be precise), I explain to my husband my excitement for this essay. A portrait of all kinds of friends.
There are the ones who want to be your mother. The ones who tell you all their problems and then realize that YOU are also part of the problem. The ones who internalize everything and give you summary points.
I’m pretty internal, Simon says, a mild concern spreading over his face.
Yeah, yeah, you’re fine. I mean you do present the stuff going on in your life like a list—already cooked.
You, on the other hand, very much like process. Very, very much.
True.
It’s a lot.
Okay, I get it. I like mess. Bring on the fucking mess!
We pause to consider our divorce.
You know what? You’re fine!! You’re like internal-external. Balanced, I would say.
Oh.
Not that bad.
Phew.
Phew.
Liz Gilbert discussing what it means to be a relaxed woman, which she believes is a radical concept. I agree! She says that leaning into this new era of “relaxed woman,” has also meant buzzing off all her hair. One pair of clippers is all she ever wants to spend on hair again! I like it.
Fierce.
Original.
Brave.
No place for ticks to hide.
A Morning Paragraph:
I feel a little bit soft and I know just how to destroy that feeling: check my email. Can I hold off? Yesterday there was a double rainbow and that’s buoying me.
A double promise? I have never had so many rejections. Like the pile is so big. The biggest.
says if the world is fundamentally kind, then this suffering must be for something good. Elsie fell in the mud on a family walk. I gave her my sweater to cover her muddy bum and I felt so happy to save her from humiliation. The tears were stinging her eyes, but I could kiss her cheek and tell her how well she was weathering this moment of mud.Right now, nothing…noone is saving me. Unless I look at it from a different angle.
On that note, I’m thinking about Maybe Baby’s essay about selfies. She wonders if they are an expression of narcissism, a fallen society.
She considers what it would be like to just be somewhere without taking a photo. Just being in that moment. That that might be as radical as being a relaxed woman. (I note the women beside me pulling out their phones to take a picture of their dumplings, as if it were the most obvious thing to do—photograph, post, then eat, forgetting to taste.)
Although, in middle age, there’s also a need to know that you can tolerate yourself. Even love yourself and maybe a photo can confirm that. Where do you stand?
Lots to think on here. What’s my radical act? Making my compression sock more visible? I weigh that a lot. In terms of selfies: I think there’s something on the balance you and Si were thinking through at the end of your talk - pictures of the world are necessary for memory making. But I want to remember myself at this time too.