318. The Gift of Friendship

[00:00:06] Welcome to Soundbite, a reflection inspired by a recent conversation on Girl, Take the Lead. I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. At the end of my recent conversation with my longtime friend, Roz Sobel, I found myself thinking about something I hadn't expected. Friendship. Roz and I have known each other for almost 50 years.

[00:00:27] We met through work. I was actually supposed to convince her to take a job, but she didn't. But we became friends anyway. And a few years later, when I moved from Los Angeles to New York, knowing exactly one person, that person was Roz.

[00:00:46] She welcomed me into her life. She introduced me to her friends. She took me places. She helped me make an unfamiliar place feel a little less unfamiliar. And then life did what life does. Our paths changed. Careers changed. Families grew. We lived in different places. There were times when our lives were more connected and times when they weren't.

[00:01:11] And yet, all these years later, there we were sitting across from each other having this conversation on Zoom. There was still a knowing between us. And I've been thinking about that.

[00:01:26] This is a certain kind of knowing that exists between people who have shared a piece of life together. A friend from childhood knows something about the child you once were and maybe aspects of your parents that a lot of people don't know.

[00:01:46] A college friend may remember the person you were trying to become. A work friend may know what it felt like to sit beside you during a particularly difficult or wonderful chapter of your life.

[00:02:01] The friends we make while raising children may remember the exhaustion, the worry, the laughter, and the person we were becoming while our children were becoming themselves. And sometimes, years later, we reconnect.

[00:02:16] There's something incredibly sweet about that moment. Someone remembers. Someone knew me then, and I knew them. Maybe that's one of the gifts of friendship. To know another person and to allow ourselves to be known.

[00:02:34] And there's love in that. Not necessarily romantic love. The love that says, I care what happens to you. I see you. Your joy matters to me. Your pain matters to me. I'm glad you're here. Maybe we're here. Maybe we don't talk enough about that kind of love. And maybe we don't talk enough about what happens when friendship changes.

[00:03:02] I wonder if somewhere along the way, many of us picked up the belief that a really good friendship is supposed to last forever. And you're always supposed to be in contact with each other. That if we were truly close, we should stay close. That somehow we're supposed to collect our friends throughout our life and hold on to each and every one of them.

[00:03:30] But is that how friendship really works? Our lives intersect for so many different reasons. Career, school, children, neighborhoods, shared interests, shared struggles, loss, change. Sometimes two people simply need each other during the same season. And then something changes. One person moves. The children grow up.

[00:04:00] The job ends. Our interests change. Our lives move in different directions. Does that mean that the friendship has failed? Nah, I think not. Maybe some friendships aren't meant to accompany us through every chapter. Maybe their gift was the chapter we shared. And the love was still real. The care was still real.

[00:04:29] What we gave one another still mattered. And sometimes we receive another gift. Our paths cross again. We sit down with someone we haven't been close to for a while and discover that beneath all the years and all the changes, there's still something there. A knowing. A history. A tenderness.

[00:04:56] A recognition of the people we once were. And perhaps some appreciation for the people we've each become. My conversation with Roz came right after my conversation with Lisa Ketcham-Hendrickson, who talked about something I've continued to carry with me. She held herself and said, This is always home.

[00:05:23] I've been thinking about what that might mean for friendship too. If I can learn to come home to myself, to become my own companion, to trust myself, to care for myself, then perhaps I don't need to ask another person to stay forever in order to prove that our friendship mattered. Maybe I can hold that friendship with an open hand. I can love you while you're here.

[00:05:50] I can miss you when our paths separate. I can carry something of you with me. And if we're lucky enough to find one another again, I can receive that too. Because perhaps friendship isn't something we're supposed to collect. Maybe it's something we're fortunate enough to experience for a season, for decades, for a lifetime, or sometimes more than once.

[00:06:22] How about this question to reflect on? Who has been a part of you that no one else could quite know? And what gift from that friendship are you still carrying? Next on Girl Take the Lead will be a conversation with Leslie Becker. Leslie is a Broadway actress of 25 years, best-selling author of The Organized Actor, host of The Unstoppably Creative Podcast,

[00:06:49] and a top success coach for creatives. And one of the things Leslie and I explore is bravery. Is bravery something some people simply have? Or could bravery be a choice we make, even when we're scared? We talk about the limiting beliefs that can quietly become part of our identity, and Leslie's gotcha exercise for catching those conversations

[00:07:19] we repeatedly have with ourselves. And I love the questions she invites us to ask. Where did this belief come from? Is it mine? Or does it belong to someone else? Because recognizing a belief is one thing. Changing it takes practice. We also talk about transitions and the bravery it can take to admit that a path we're once on may no longer belong to us.

[00:07:48] And of course, we talk about creativity. Leslie's believes that creativity exists in all of us, whether it shows up through art, business, problem-solving, performance, or simply the way we choose to live our lives. Until then, stay curious, keep leading with your heart, and as always, take the lead.