“Now that we are firmly planted in the new year, as we think about giving all of this to our future; our future selves, our children, and their children, I want us to really interrogate what that future needs.”—Cree Myles, Founding Editor of All Ways Black
Survey Update
Thank you to those of you who have taken the annual The Find survey so far! I love hearing from each of you and appreciate your feedback. Haven’t shared your thoughts yet? Please do! There’s still a chance to win a reusable water bottle. The survey can be found here.
On Friendship
I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Loneliness is a health-related epidemic. The mediums intended to keep us connected are drawing us further and further apart from one another, inundating our senses with empty images of false realities. Life is not perfectly polished, yet we see these fabricated veneers and can’t help but to believe that they are true, that our lives pale in comparison.
We need each other, now more than ever, and friendship is vital, a balm to our anxiety-ridden and weary souls. It is perhaps the most underrated relationship, the one that’s first to go when we get older and fall in love, yet it’s one of the most important. Our spouses and partners are important, the family who isn’t toxic, of course, but friends are the people who are there to fulfill the spiritual whims and adventures that keep us sane and grounded.
Friendship may also be the hardest relationship to keep.
I have always prioritized friendship in my life, placing my platonic relationships on the same plane as my romantic ones, but over the years, things change. People have babies, or move away, or get married to people you can’t stand. I’ve found myself thinking a lot lately, now that I have more time to consider my life and what I want it to be, now that the dust has somewhat settled from two years of school, about the people who are no longer in my life, those who have remained against all odds, and the new ones I have found along the way.
I have admittedly not been the greatest friend for the past two years. I’ve had no time for relationships, extracurricular activities, whims and adventures. Even before these two years of craziness, I can’t say that I was the most attentive friend, but I am the friend who will be there when you need me.
Need to have an existential breakdown on the living room floor? Come on over, I’ve got the kettle going. Want to talk on the phone for three hours? I’m your girl. While I’m not so good at weekly check-ins or monthly hangouts, and am notoriously bad at responding to texts or DMs, I will drop everything when you need to talk ad nauseam about what to do next, when you’re at the incomprehensible fork in the road that is misted over by fear and self-doubt.
A Season or a Reason
But inevitably, relationships change. People change. Whether by physical distance or difference in interest, sometimes we need to find new people. New friends to fulfill the whims and adventures that we’ve been missing.
It’s much too simple, and a bit trite at this point, but when relationships shift I can’t help but to consider the oft-quoted statement, “People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” (I just discovered this line is from the beginning of a poem by Brian A. Chalker.)
How do we know if a shift is signaling the end or merely a transformation? What if we will emerge on the other side renewed and refortified in our commitment to each other? What if we lose each other, and everything we’ve been through together, everything we’ve weathered side-by-side, is no longer shared?
There have been countless opportunities for us to fall away from one another, for polarizing rhetoric and rigid beliefs to put up walls: racism, social upheaval, abortion rights, gun violence, vaccines, to name a few. It’s startling when someone we’ve known and loved for so long shows a part of themselves we didn’t know existed. How can this be?
But there is always an opportunity to fall away; when do we stand firm in our support of this person we love, and when do we say “Enough” and walk away? Sometimes seeking out the companionship of new, like-minded people, of relationships uncomplicated by time and history, is preferable to digging in the accumulated mud of the past, a practice that may prove futile.
I’ve been beyond fortunate to make new friends in my new field, which feels momentous—making friends as an adult is the hardest—and gives my life a richness I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve made close bonds with other people of color, people who are invested in making things better than how they found them, who are creative and passionate (and maybe a little too obsessed with work). I’ve found my people.
Finding my people puts the relationships I’ve had for a long time in juxtaposition, the kind of position where you can’t help but compare. How do we know when a friendship is for life, and when it’s time to let a friendship go?
I’ve had some of my friends in my life since the third grade. We’ve grown up together, from playing horsies in the backyard to drinking and smoking in high school to being bridesmaids in each others’ weddings. It’s been a blessing to go through the highs and lows of life together, to know that even when we get busy or fall out of touch, when we get back together it will be like no time has passed. But time has passed.
Time changes everything, and the only constant is change. The history we’ve cultivated alongside one another adds layers to our relationship like a worn blanket, comforting and perhaps, at times, too heavy. We’ve seen each other grow and evolve, but have we grown and evolved together?
I wonder if time is as powerful as we think it is, or if sometimes it’s wielded like an excuse. Just because we’ve known someone for most of our lives, does that mean they’re meant to always be there? The comforting knowledge that someone has always been there almost always guarantees that we will take their presence for granted. They’ve always been there, so we don’t need to reach out, make an effort, keep plans.
Or maybe it's not that at all. Maybe there’s nothing you have in common anymore, maybe you can’t bear to hear what they will say to you when you ask how they’re doing, or perhaps there’s nothing left to say.
Is it judgment or concern when we look at the person we’ve known for so long and can’t recognize them anymore? What if the person you’ve always known is no longer that person?
As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more aware of myself and of the conditions that have helped to create this sense of self. I’ve come to terms with what I had been in denial about for so long: that I am not immune from racism and misogyny, that some of the people I’ve grown up around and the towns I’ve called home are all too willing to pretend that my lived experience doesn’t exist, that it’s out there, not here, that they “don’t think of you as Black” and we live in “a much better time” and “have come a long way,” so why do I care so much?
Once you’re awake, you can’t go back to sleep. And you don’t want to. You just want the people you care about to wake up, too.
The Friday Finds
Action. Check out author R.O. Kwon’s annual reading list, “75 Books by Women of Color to Read in 2024.” The time and care Kwon puts into this list each year is beyond generous, and I couldn’t agree more her statement: “I maintain the hope that, one day, American letters will be so inclusive that a piece like this will no longer be useful.” But for now, they are, and I am grateful to Kwon for making great books accessible.
Listen. “Diamond” by Izzy Bizu. “There’s more than just this universe, than you and me.”
Watch. The Invitation. Starring the ethereal Nathalie Emmanuel, this horror film turns the tired “last girl standing” trope on its head. Is it cheesy? Yes. Is it also a thrillingly good time? Absolutely.
Read. The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton! A riveting middle-grade fantasy, this novel follows Ella Durand, an 11-year-old girl who comes from a long line of Conjurers. It’s Ella’s first year at the Arcanum Training Institute, a magic school for Marvellers that has never accepted Conjurers until Ella, and she must contend with suspicion, derision, and secrets to assert her power and claim her right to the truth. A bit slow to start (Clayton has a lot of fantastic world to build!) but well worth the wait.
Thank you for being here. See you soon.
In solidarity,
Emma
So glad you wrote on this, thank you. It often gets overlooked. Everything you said..it's like you read my mind 😊
This is a topic I think about a lot, too! Love the art poster you chose. And now I know who to call for my next existential crisis 😆🩷