My stupid view of friendships.

A big light bulb from reading The Life Council; Part 3 in the friendship series. Plus, greetings from book tour and upcoming events and stuff.

Greetings from San Diego, where I’ve spent the last week. I had a book event at Warwick’s in La Jolla on Wednesday night, which was awesome (pictures below!). I’m heading out tomorrow morning to go to Portland for another event—the first I’m doing with SansBar—and I’m excited about that and to check out Portland a bit. I’ve only been once, for a quick overnight trip while teaching a retreat several years ago. Any tips are welcome! (Yes, of course, I will be checking out Powell’s!)

Right before I took off for this trip, I downloaded The Life Council: 10 Friendships Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine to my Kindle. I’d seen a few people post about it on Instagram, and although the title kind of turned me off¹, I figured I’d check it out since I’m down the rabbit hole on friendships right now.

While certain aspects of the book weren’t for me (the Christian bent, for example), overall, I found it great because it got me thinking about friendships and my role as a friend in new ways—helpful and hopeful ways. Today’s newsletter is about my main insight.

ICYMI, the other parts in the friendship series are here: Part 1 and Part 2. The next parts will go up in mid-May and will be a conversation with Kelly McDaniel, therapist and author of Ready to Heal and Mother Hunger. We’ll be talking about attachment styles in friendships, how attachment wounds can create dysfunctional dynamics and more. These conversations will be for paid subscribers only.

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The premise of this book is that we all need a “Life Council,” or a group of friends that serve different roles in our lives. Laura goes through each of the types—which are meant to be guideposts, not categories for people, like a bad personality test—sharing examples from her own friendships and why this person or role is important. She also shares five friendship philosophies, including “Friendship is a to-do,” “Believe the best,” and “Your spouse is not your best friend.” The ten types of friends she talks about include The Daily Duty Friend, The Old Friend, The Business Bestie, The Battle Buddy, and The New Friend. While I identified with some of the types and not others, the most helpful part of seeing them wasn’t the types themselves but the fact that friendships are varied and serve different purposes and don’t need to be emotionally deep to be real.

Yes, we loved them, but most friendships don’t look like this. Maybe none do?

Emotional depth isn’t the only measure of friendship.

This was the big aha. I’ve often found myself frustrated or, more commonly, have discounted certain types of friendships as being less meaningful or “real” if we don’t talk about our innermost emotional lives. The other parents who I’ve raised Alma with, for example, or many of my former colleagues, or other authors I know, who I occasionally text with or talk to on the phone about an industry or writing-specific thing. Even though I’ve spent tons of time with many of these people and/or have gone through specific battles and life phases (that crazy boss; that insane project; 2008!) that no one else could possibly understand; even though they’ve filled absolutely critical roles at times; even though sometimes our friendship existed solely to make each other laugh, I somehow saw them as less legitimate friends because we—what?—didn’t dissect our therapy sessions together or understand each others’ childhood trauma?

Similarly, I’ve often looked at T’s friendships with other men and thought they were functional but not particularly deep because while they do stuff together—play volleyball, go to Phish shows—they don’t talk-talk. He doesn’t worry about his friends’ problems (if he even knows what they are!) or how major parts of their lives are going. Oftentimes, when I ask questions about his friends like, “So, when is so-and-so’s wedding?” or “How is so-and-so’s new job?” he laughs at me for thinking he’d have the answer to such questions. “But you just spent four days together!” I say. He shrugs.

This book genuinely opened my eyes to how narrow this view of what “real” friendship is, how much friendship gold I’ve discounted along the way, and how many opportunities for friendship exist in my life already. Again, perhaps it’s because of the media portrayals of friendship “squad goals” or the “ride or die” trope, or who knows, but I definitely had this idea that only the BFF-level type of friends counted as “real.”

I laughed at myself while reading The Life Council, in a kind of, You’re an asshole, Laura, way when I considered my view of T’s friendships as shallow or whatever. Most of his Phish Friends date back to college, meaning they’ve sustained their friendship for over thirty years. Yes, they get together to go to these shows, but that’s not an insignificant commitment to each other. They arrange their entire lives around these things, travel from different states, and make intricate and detailed plans to execute their trips in a certain way. T has gone to over 230 Phish shows (I know, wtf), and at least half of them are with these friends, I’d guess. That’s a ton of shared time together, shared experience, and shared love of Phish and music in general. It’s a hell of a lot of connection over several decades.

Similarly, although he sees his Volleyball Friends only because they play the game together, he sees them more or less weekly and for several hours at a time each time. I don’t see any of my friends weekly! Sure, these friendships are “functional” in part (they can’t play the game without each other), but there’s much more to them than just that: they compete, they give each other shit, they laugh, they learn new skills, they push their bodies, sometimes they argue, they play, they have fun. (Wasn’t this how most childhood friendships operated?) No, he doesn’t know the ins and outs of all these guys’ live—or even the most basic things, sometimes, like what they do for work—but that’s kind of the point. This time is a break from everything else and it’s critical to him. It’s life-sustaining; I see it week to week. How is that not “real” friendship?

I do think we need emotional intimacy with some friends in our lives to feel whole and seen on a soul level. When that part is missing—either because we’re not in close proximity to those friends, don’t communicate regularly for whatever reason, or they’ve fallen away—no matter how many other types of friends we may have around us, we’re going to feel a lack. But the hyper-focus on this type of relationship as the baseline measure of friendship presence in our life misses so much.

Consider:

• Your work friends who don’t know much or anything about your personal life

• The friend you only text hilarious memes and gifts with, and that’s it

• The friend you’ve only ever talked to on Instagram

• The other parent you sit with at all your kid’s soccer games but see nowhere else

• The ones you talk to at the dog park every morning

• The friends you play kickball with, or run with, or hike with, or play video games with

• The neighbor who makes sure your kid gets in safely after school every day

• The friend you only text about books with

• The friend from home who you see once every five years

• Your “sobriety” friends, who you’ve never met IRL

• Your AA friends or TLC friends

These relationships matter. They all play a significant role in our lives, our well-being, our happiness, and (talking to myself here) shouldn’t be overlooked or taken for granted. They are real, legitimate friendships! Even if you only share a small sliver of your existence with them; even if they only know you in a certain, very specific context; even if they have no idea what you were like in fifth grade or what you do for a living or what your kids’ names are. Some of these people could transition to a more emotionally intimate type of friendship if you wanted, but my main point here is that they don’t have to. Emotional depth is just one measure of friendship, and the other measures: practicality, fun, reliance, humor, comradery, shared interests, shared experience, proximity—are also important and no less real.

A few other takeaways from the book:

• Early motherhood is generally a hard, shitty time for friendship: being one, making them, having time and energy for them, all of it. I found it so isolating and lonely, and the idea that it shouldn’t be that way, or that it wasn’t that way for other people, made it far worse.

• The same goes for sobriety. I went through an entire restructuring of friendships in early sobriety (the first five years), where the old dynamics changed or fell away, and new relationships had yet to form.

• We play different roles in different friendships and sometimes those roles feel unbalanced and unfair. This book put language to that, which was helpful.

• Showing up is the main thing.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back in your inbox next week. xo - Laura

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Offerings, Events, etc.

My six-week writing and meditation course, The Practice, begins on May 2. I love love love teaching this course. Learn more and register. Paid subscribers: look in the Chat function here to get a $100 discount on registration.

My book event in San Diego earlier this week was great. Here are a few pics:

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Next up, Portland, which is SOLD OUT! Catch me in NYC, DC, or Toronto.

I’ll be keynoting the Women for Sobriety annual conference on Friday, June 9. This is a weekend-long virtual conference and you can get $20 off the registration fee by entering PUSHOFF at checkout. Learn more & register.

The Luckiest Club turns three years old in May! If you need sobriety support, our doors are always open.

Join me at The Art of Living in Boone, NC, July 21-23 for a weekend retreat.

I was on Sarah Hepola’s podcast, Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em, recently. I loved talking to her, as always.

Laura McKowen and the Gift of Quiet Change

1. I’m weird. There’s nothing wrong with this title. I just don’t like being told I NEED something.