Last year was a monumental year, one in which I became the variety of adult I once feared (come on in, the waterâs more than fine). I thought about friendships, a lot. I couldnât help itâunsurprisingly, weddings and babies, and eventually, illnesses and funerals, are the illuminating moments in our lives. What I didnât expect was that as each milestone passed by, I discovered in its wake renewed clarity on my relationships.
Safety was never something I sought in relationships, friendships or otherwise. I looked for friends who I found thrilling; I was, and sometimes still am, drawn to shiny things, even while I acknowledge that our social landscapeânot to mention, our social mediaâhas become oversaturated with shiny, with those who posture, present, jostle to tell you about their personal brand.
Around this time last year, I stopped by an event on the way to a bachelorette. I met a new friend there, someone who had also recently moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We commiserated over our lack of âcouch friendsââthe friends you find comfort in silence with, the ones who re-root you when you feel yourself adrift, who consider and anticipate your needsâthe ones who you feel safe next to. Since then, perhaps uncoincidentally coinciding with my pregnancy and newborn parenthood, Iâve found myself gravitating toward safety.
Polyvagal theory explains the adaptive behavior of our nervous system in response to external stimuli. This, in turns, shapes our physiological and psychological states. When we feel safe, our bodies have the resources to heal and growâand we have the capacity to connect, to show up as our better selves. The conditions that are necessary for safety are individual and ever-evolving, but there are shared, foundational characteristics that engender the feeling of safety: curiosity, compassion, presenceâthe genuine desire to begin to know a person, to approach someoneâs truth.
The limits to self-knowledge seem impenetrable; true knowledge of another seems entirely impossible. Yet, love is the earnest attempt to know another, to do so with an undeterred open-heartedness, without haste or entitlement or presumption.
Iâve written about my working theory on friendship: that friends can and should be able to meet you wherever youâre at and wherever you choose to go.
I knew, vaguely, that I wanted friends like the ones I already haveâI want friends with whom I can spend hours philosophizing; backpack ten miles through Tuolumne Meadows; potato in silence when one of us comes undone; argue about who gets the bed at a wedding and then watch The Office together before falling asleep; laugh until our stomachs hurt, dance on a Brooklyn rooftop, or people-watch perched atop Havasupai Falls, drunk on psychedelics or just the certitude of being blissfully, implausibly alive.
These are the friends I feel safest withâthey always know where to find me, because, as much as is possible, they know me.
My best friend and I have known each other since we were 12 and she remains the one person (aside from my actual life partner) who I am devoted to in a way that is unconditional and unequivocally permanent. The opulent longevity and the emotional vulnerability of our friendship rests on the safety of our mutual devotion. It hasnât been an easy friendship; there have been misunderstandings and conflicts to wade through. Over the years, our individual branches have diverged and come back to entangle more times than we can count. Yet, it is the âtime under tensionâ weâve accumulated that makes it possible for us to know each other.
Two of my closest friends live on the east coast now. We write each other love letters disguised as recommendations. In the language of shared articles, books, podcasts, music, musings, we tell each other, âIâm thinking of you and I think this will make your world more expansive and more beautiful.â Weâve influenced each othersâ tastes and opinions and ideas, our thinking paralleling each othersâ as we work through thought experiments (are intelligent people necessarily competent?) and existential questions (how do we die a graceful death?). In turn, weâve grown together, formed our âselvesâ together. Theyâve shown me as much about myself as theyâve shown me the world: John OâDonohue, Italian interior design, âpremium mediocreâ, WEIRD societies, Peter Cat Recording Co.. Beyond feeling âseen,â I canât imagine being myself without them.
Four months into this remarkable year, the days are simple but sublime. I find myself soothed by the most mundane of miracles: the sunshine on my shoulders as I write in our backyard, the wild rosemary lining the sidewalk, the full-bodied way Tom makes me laugh, the way Eliot beams at me in the morning, every new day with my boys. In the tender safety of our small and meaningful lives, I find myself awakening to awe again and again. I have to pause, here and there, to remind myself that these are the sweetest days.
Thank you for being my couch friends, for holding me steady through the ebbs and flows, for keeping me safe and seen.
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