feeling friendship saturated
the purgatory between connection and your own capacity.
I love friendship and I love my friends with all of my being.
I love celebrating their wins. I love late night facetimes. I love impromptu co-working sessions. And I especially love prolonged hugs.
I attribute this to being raised by a mom who centered friendship and sisterhood throughout her life. My mom founded a latina sorority and was the first of her friends to have a kid. I grew up around a handful of fabulous women who unconditionally loved and supported my mom as she raised me. I am, simply, forever grateful for how my upbringing impacted my value on friendship.
Recently, I’ve felt friendship saturated – full of love for my existing community while also feeling deeply overwhelmed by the idea of nurturing more connections in my life.
As I’m stepping into my purpose and living out my values, new, aligned humans are entering the villa, while some existing friends are moving in different directions.
Others are tied to a version of myself that I no longer identify with.
It is an out of body experience to bear witness to your own growth while others are committed to experiencing the version of yourself that is no longer there. It makes me Really Fucking Sad.
So, what the fuck does navigating change have to do with feeling friendship saturated?
In times of change, we are vulnerable. We’re not certain who we are yet to become, and we also surrender to this uncertainty. We seek out new perspectives to guide us, while becoming acutely aware of who we currently extend our energy to.
In times of change, I’ve doubled down on friendships that celebrate this change and embrace change themselves, while becoming curious towards the friendships that are stagnant, or moving in different directions. (P.S. I’m no longer interested in friendship breakups, which, I think, is oftentimes rooted in avoidance and a lack of conflict resolution. That’s a conversation for another time).
Feeling friendship-saturated while navigating a big transformation is full of grief, surrender, and The Unknown. I’ve felt inclined to spend more time with fewer friends, while saving part of my social energy for new connections. It only takes one connection to change your life.
I’m not closed off to new friendships, but the act of friendship-making overwhelms me. I don’t have confidence that I can continue to be a Good Friend to more people.
But, do I always need to be a Good Friend?
I ask myself:
What does friendship saturation feel like?
When do I feel this way? When don’t I feel this way?
Who do I feel this with?
Why do I feel the need to always be a Good Friend? (I don’t have the answer to this).
Why does asking for help make me feel like a Bad Friend? (I do have the answer to this).
Why do I feel closed off to building relationships with some while jumping into The Unknown with others? Do I need an answer here, or is trusting my intuition enough?
I’d love to give myself a black and white answer, but I’m doing my best to celebrate Gray Area.
In most cases, I don’t even want answers. I just want to live the questions.
It makes me Sad to not extend myself to more connections, but it also provides me the greatest Relief to honor my exhaustion. I love humans and I love friendship, but I need to say no to a lot of people in order to keep saying yes (a resounding fuck yes) to the sacred role that friendship plays in my life.
I love the shit out of friendship. I simply think I was put on this earth to give my friends prolonged hugs (and start a dance floor and stay when no one else joins).
That’s it.
It’s okay to feel friendship saturated. Maybe it’s what happens when your capacity to love has grown so much that you need to nurture the existing love before expanding again. Love requires energy and time and patience and trust. Sometimes the best thing to do is let your capacity to love rest.
Friendship saturation isn’t a sign that you’re a Bad Friend — it’s proof that your capacity to love is full.
In due time, you’ll feel hungry again.
I like to think of friends as people whose lives you'll sync up with for a little bit, but they can and need to be let go when the moment is right. I didn't grow up around the healthiest attitudes for letting go of friends - my mom was one to always to always remark of old friends of mine "you don't talk to them anymore... :( ", but I learned later in adult life it doesn't have to be a tragic event. The death of an old friendship is the chance for a new one: the age-old theme of death and rebirth.
I like what you say, how "Love requires energy and time and patience and trust." It's true. We can't let our love well run dry by inviting too many people to drink from it, we gotta take time to refill it.