Why letting go of friends was the resolution I needed
And a Q&A on trusting your gut, parenting an autistic child
A few things to unpack for 2023:
On my Substack!
After a few months of experimenting with my writing schedule, I will post on Fridays. Thanks for reading and I love receiving your emails, comments and likes.
New Q&A! I’ve written about how I’ve f-ed up in all the nooks and crannies of my life. Thanks for having a good sense of humor about it with me. One perspective is boring so, each month I will share how others slipped and fell, learned from it, and lived to tell you their tales. I am thankful for their vulnerability. The first one is today!
My essay on parting from crappy friendships is the last part of my post today, scroll down.
On resolutions! Or “wishes” - a term I like, borrowed from Emma Gannon of Substack The Hyphen.
In the spirit of some common resolutions like creating a good routine with positive habits, read James Clear’s description of the Seinfeld Strategy and the goal of not breaking the chain. It’s about showing up every single day and marking it on a big wall calendar as proof. See what I mean here.
If you have trouble staying interested in a book, have you tried to read multiple books at once? It seems counterintuitive but it has worked for me. Try various books in different genres and read them based on your mood. Let’s face it, we’re moody people so why not read a book based on your current appetite? YouTuber Elizabeth Filips makes a great case for reading a few books at a time.
What I learned: Q&A with Luana Barajas
My first interview is with Luana Barajas, an 8th grade teacher, who has many more roles like mom of 3, environmental activist, my college roommate, and super cool friend. We spent many nights in our early 20s eating stale chips, learning the idiosyncrasies and similarities of being children of immigrants, and watching way too many episodes of Friends on DVD.
What do you love to do?
I love to dance, read YA fiction, teach dancing, and talk about the environment.
You can follow Luana, who posts about these interests and doesn’t sugarcoat real life. Every social feed is curated, no matter how “pretty” your pictures are but Luana’s is a great example of a glimpse of some reality, especially as a working mom.
What do you do for money, work?
I teach 8th grade ELA, AVID/ELD (English Language Arts and English Language Development,
Advancement Via Individual Determination is an academic acceleration program that aims to prepare students in the academic middle for four-year colleges).
What was the hardest thing you’ve had to do?
Breastfeed while working full time. I was pumping 5 times a day 35 oz of milk a day, and my son still wanted more! Being a new mom, with unknown postpartum anxiety, working full-time, and breastfeeding almost made me have a nervous breakdown.
What was the easiest thing you’ve done?
Taking my 3 kids to Disneyland by myself. I prepared for a really tough day but it's one of my best memories with them. The 4 of us had so much fun we stayed until the park closed and didn't want to leave.
What have you learned?
Trust your gut and instinct and don't let anyone make you second guess yourself. This has happened so many times in my life. My mom/teacher/female instinct has told me what to do and sometimes I followed it and other times I stalled. Every time I stalled I regretted it.
For example, I knew my son was autistic when he was 2 years old. His pediatrician told me there was no way he was autistic. Everyone kept telling me that I was wrong, that I was looking into it too much. I let it go and I still continued to teach him skills that I knew he would need but I knew he wasn't understanding. I stopped bringing up that he was autistic with anyone because nobody was listening to me.
When he turned 7 he completely spiraled and needed so much help. I finally went against what everyone had been telling me and took him to a private psychologist. I had him assessed and she affirmed everything that I had been seeing. He is autistic and for so many years I kicked myself for not listening to my gut and having him get assessed sooner but if it wasn't for me he wouldn't have ever been assessed at all.
He now has an IEP (individual education plan) at school that has made a huge difference with his academics. My husband also had a really hard time understanding him. Since he was diagnosed I've had him read books to be able to understand autism better. He's starting to understand why our son acts and how to gently parent an autistic child.
That must have been hard, to have no one believe you.
When my son was 7, his pediatrician told me that he wasn't autistic. He suggested I wasn't setting clear boundaries and he was badly behaved. Fortunately, I have a PPO healthcare plan and I have a great psychiatrist, who said that response is really typical. Pediatricians know very little about autism and if your child isn't super obvious they won't refer you to a specialist.
Trust your gut and find strength in taking matters into your own hands if something concerns you. We are our own and our kids’ best advocates.
You made it this far, dang, I appreciate you!
While you’re here, let’s dissect this dream I had recently, why don’t we?
I was walking solo at night in San Francisco. I am on my way to a new, hip coffee shop and I see an unlit alleyway. My gut told me not to go and I walked straight through because, like me in real life, my dreams tend to make dumb decisions. I saw exactly what I feared, people experiencing homelessness, folks who looked strung out, hungry, the street filled with trash and sadness.
Unharmed, I arrived at the coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino. I waited for 10 minutes, watched others who stood in line behind me receive their specialty lattes and cold brews. I ask the girl behind the counter about the status of my coffee and she says she’ll look into it. I watch her as she does nothing. She doesn’t look for my ticket or check with the barista or the 5 other young people “working”, who are leaning against the counter, chatting, looking at their phones – and not making my drink! Then I ask her again and she says it will come and I watch her proceed to do nothing again. I say I need to go and she says OK, with no emotion, with no sense of urgency whatsoever. I said, if I don’t get it soon, I’ll need to get coffee somewhere else. Then she said OK, same expression of giving zero fucks. I was appalled that she didn’t care. How can she not care? I said this is bad business. And she shrugged her shoulders. So I left, angry I didn’t get my coffee, more angry that I couldn’t make her care about it either.
Then I walk to another coffee shop and an old friend I no longer speak to is there. We say nothing and she hugs me. I let her hug me but I pull away after she’s done, do not look at her, turn and walk away.
Perhaps I had this dream because of a recent (paid) subscription thread of Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study on the topic: What kind of friend are you? I resonated with so many people in the thread who talked about how they are the planners in their friendships and felt frustrated when they were the only ones doing the planning in certain relationships.
I’ve had a couple of friends in which I felt like I put in all the effort. I reached out to see if they could hang. I asked if they wanted to get lunch. I would check in to say hi. Text a quick “how are you.” Simple, I thought. This is what friends do. Friendships are a two-way street. But some friends never initiated any of these with me. I knew someone who made it difficult for us (and our daughters who loved playing with each other) to hang out. It was hard for me because once we actually spent time together, I enjoyed the time, felt like we had a connection, and spoke easily about common interests. But after realizing I was participating in a friendship where the effort was one sided, I stopped trying. When I stopped trying, guess what happened?
They never reached out.
I spent too much time overanalyzing why I wasn’t good enough. “I’m fun to be with!” I’d cry to my husband. Like someone walking down a dark alleyway by myself, I’d try again with these relationships because I was itching for companionship. Nothing good came of it. I reached out, and then came out of the other side feeling sad that I forged that path again. And like the girl who didn’t care about my coffee order, I cannot make these people care. I can’t control how they feel about me and our friendship but I can control how I feel and the effort I put in it. So I decided to let go of these friendships. I didn’t break up with these people, say a proper goodbye. I simply didn’t do anything.
I no longer spend time wondering my worth and how I can make them want to be a better friend to me. I have plenty of friends that reciprocate and invest in our friendship.
Then there was the friend I saw at the 2nd coffee shop. I can be a glutton for punishment. I indulge in things not good for me. This is a friend I had for many years and we grew up together. But a few years ago, I made the decision to also let this friend go because I felt awful, and heavy, and exhausted every time we interacted. I do think about her sometimes and have the urge to reach out, especially as I’ve been thinking about my childhood a lot. Is my dream reminding me that I’m still not ready for this relationship?
I have amazing friendships and so many different types of them. This dream reminded me of the ones I don’t want.
Because I don’t like to put a damper on things, let’s end on a good friendship!
Our white german shepherd, Maeve, joined us around 6 months ago and she is the sweetest dog without a mean bone. Because of a shitty past, she was also an anxious and fearful dog. Even swatting flies sent her running away down the hallway. After she escaped a few times to be with her foster family down the street (they have two cute rambunctious dogs), we decided to find another dog, unsure if this will help her confidence. We got Mickey, a chocolate lab, two days before Christmas and these two together have been a dream. They need each other, are inseparable, and I can’t believe I now have two dogs following me everywhere I go.
Mickey!!!!! Welcome, newest love!!