Hey, you! 😊
I am very happy and excited for today’s episode because as promised, I have a special guest who will be joining me. My first guest on the podcast. This means a lot to me moreso because I wanted her specifically to be my first guest here. But before anything, let me introduce today’s topic - Adult friendships.
Making friends as an adult is hard. People are busy. Life is complicated. We have so much going on. People who rely on us. Projects. Our established routines. Habits. So where do new adult friends fit in all of this.
For my part, I’ve always had a lot of friends growing up. My childhood friends. And I feel so blessed because I still have a lot of them present in my life. It’s hard because of the distance since I moved to France 12 years ago, but we always make sure to keep in touch online and update each other with our life events. But as an adult, I think I’ve only managed to make about 5 new friends. And only two of these friends are really close friends. And only one would be the closest I could call a best friend, which is a term I personally haven’t used in a long long long time. And so perhaps, you’ve probably guessed it – I ‘ve asked her this person to be my guest today.
I thought it would be fitting to ask my friend, Laurie to be here and talk about adult friendships with me today because our friendship is the most beautiful relationship I’ve managed to make as an adult. But it wasn’t as easy as you might think. It took time to build. In fact, it took us about 10 years to get where we are today. We started as colleagues and we kept that distance for a while talking mostly about work. We didn’t see each other every day, but each time we talked, we also started opening up a little more, but still mostly about work. But even if our topics of conversation were about work, it also gave a window of who the person behind was. How they manage stress, how they work under pressure, how they handle work expériences, good or bad. While staying professional, you can still see a glimpse of the person. Years later, we were assigned a project and we had to take the train together. And at that moment, because there was a certain comfort that had settled in, we started opening up about things outside of work finally. Little steps at a time. But ultimately what cemented our friendship was the pandemic. We went deeper into our feelings, anxiety, hardships, not having any idea of what was going on. The only good thing that came out from the pandemic for me is our friendship. We came out of that even closer and at this point, I know this is a friendship for keeps. There’s so much we still have to discover about each other but what we’ve shared, and our families have shared, is something that I know, for my part, can’t be broken. There’s so much respect between us. Sometimes these things just can’t be explained. I just feel it.
Here are the questions Laurie and I talked about in this podcast episode:
What do you think of the anxiety around making new friends?
When do you do beyond "what do you do"?
How does a healthy adult friendship look like to you?
When and how does friendship end?
You can follow Laurie on her Instagram account - Little Bird Designs FR (https://www.instagram.com/littlebirddesignsfr/). I know that she's been working on a very exciting project and I can't wait to hear all about her journey going forward into a slower, more intentional, creative, and functional life!
I would like to end this by saying that my friendship with Laurie has taught me that only the low maintenance friendships will survive. The ones who aren't worried about a rain check or immediate response. The ones who understand we all have busy lives and own battles to fight. The ones who understand that friendship is supposed to require zero social battery and are supposed to be a fun part of life. And the ones who give you space to be who you are and grow into what you want to be.
Take care and always remember - la vie est belle!
xoxo Elodie
Link for Season 2, Episode 5🎙️
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