Any time I do the Wordle, even if I come up blank and don’t solve the puzzle, I share my result with a friend. She does the same. I haven’t done the puzzle for over a month, but this week, my friend did, and she shared an image with the little green and yellow boxes of her result. I immediately felt warm, thought of and connected with her.
I have countless elements of my life that remind me of others. It’s as if things, places, ideas and events that we talk about or share with one another get a sticker of that person affixed to them. So when I encounter that object, think about that thing or visit that place again, an image of that person pops into my mind. I think of these as sticky memories.
Whenever I buy grapes, especially when I can’t wait to get them home for a proper wash and instead rub them semi-clean between my fingers before eating them straight from the bag, I think of my college roommate. We used to walk from our dorm rooms down to a little produce market, buy a bag of grapes and munch on them as we made our way back to campus.
When I walk past a certain house in my neighborhood, I think of my friend who changed careers a few years ago, we talked about her decision one early morning as I walked along that spot, and I can’t pass it now without thinking of her.
Whenever I walk into a store and see a display of the individually-wrapped “Oh Snap!” pickles, I am transported back to a scorching bike ride. After riding in 106 degrees for well over an hour, my friend and I stopped at a convenience store to refill water bottles, I couldn’t resist buying one of those pickles and tore into it right there in the store still donning my helmet and gloves.
Going for a run along Lakeshore Drive in Chicago makes me think of running with a work colleague from years ago. While attending a conference, we met in the lobby at 5am to run together before sessions. Now when I am in Chicago, and I head out for a run, I think of her.
When I order an Americano with a splash of sweet cream at Starbucks, I think of the day I shared the same drink with a close friend and told her I was leaving my job.
When I encounter one of these sticky memories, an image of that person and the day it stuck floods my thoughts. I often feel compelled to write to the person I am reminded of, often out of the blue, to say hello. I love this. I love the connection, the way it allows me to time travel, and how I get to appreciate that friend and how they grace my life. Each of these moments creates an increasingly strong and growing web of support through which I have come to navigate the world.
While, to a degree, all of life is uncertain, there is an element of right now, our short and longterm future, that feels particularly obscured, and polarization has reached a new level of division. Yet despite this, or perhaps because of this, I am feeling the importance of friendship more than ever.
I grew up taking cautious warnings around what type of information we should share with others to an extreme, which meant that for years, I tended to be more guarded than I needed to be. I kept things “close to the vest,” and while I have always tried to be a great listener, I see now, in retrospect, that people may have shared less with me because I shared less with them. But, over the past several years, something changed: I have realized that through my willingness to be vulnerable and share what’s real - the good times, hard times, messy times, I have been able to get closer to people, expand my ability to connect with others and deepen friendships. Turns out that as humans, we share emotions and have similar experiences. By talking about them, we can help each other navigate the challenges we face in work, relationships, life… Many people naturally have this tendency. I had to live lots of years to learn this and to trust that getting hurt is not an inevitable result of sharing ourselves.
And it is these relationships that I am turning to as I try to make sense of now and navigate a way through. We are stronger, fuller, more complete when we are together. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about the value of friendship.
Friends:
finish each other’s sentences
hold space for the good, sad, confusing and messy times
after a long time apart, pick up right where we left off
challenge us to see what we are blind to
believe in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves
share ideas and favorite things
make each other laugh
hold us up when we’re falling
encourage our dreams
ask big questions
help us figure things out
give us courage to do the hard things
show us that we can trust ourselves
When we know that other people in our lives have this power, it makes us stronger.
When times feel tough, it can be tempting to flee - inward or away. But I am convinced that the best way through uncertainty is to lean into our friendships, creating a network of sticky memories that bind us together.
Love this! 🍇