I wish that there was stronger cultural messaging around friendships, and how to tend to and care for them. I wish there was more space to talk about how painful it is when they shift, break, die off slowly, die off suddenly.

American culture valorizes the Nuclear Family Unit such that friendships are often categorized as secondary to romantic love, sexual attraction, filial commitment. Losing those relationships hurts in a way that's easy to communicate to those who prioritize them above all else

But prizing community, to me, means loving your close friends as your family. It means treating them with the deep care you show a loved one. Explaining that - and expressing the grief of a lost or injured friendship - to people who don't operate that way is next to impossible

I am such a proponent of the notions that not everyone needs to be friends - that a lack of regard doesn't have to mean malice or abuse - that friendships can and should change over time because people change and that's a good and healthy thing!

But a lack of cultural framework to talk about friendships as intentional, loving, important relationships makes it so fucking hard to talk openly about those dynamics when friendships change or fall apart. I see so many people hurting in this way and not knowing how to say so

Anyway love your friends, tell them so all the time, be kind as you can to each other, grieve however your heart needs. It's okay to miss a friendship and it's normal to hurt at the absence of someone you love, no matter what mode you love them in. It's okay to care.