Friendship – Style & Serenity

You Have to Be Looking

August 18th, 2026

Some mornings the news alone could make you give up on people. Gaza. The Epstein files. Wars nobody’s pretending will end. Whole days of evidence that we are not what we’d like to think we are.

Then my neighbor shows up at the door with something she made, because she remembered that I like it. My pharmacist says my name and smiles like she means it. A stranger holds a door two extra seconds so I don’t have to rush. A friend turns up with flowers for no reason at all, just because she thought I needed them. A child waves at me from a car window like we already know each other. A baby catches my eye in line at the store and grins, nothing to gain.

None of that fixes anything. It just keeps happening anyway.

There’s a poem for this, Danusha Laméris’s “Small Kindnesses.” She doesn’t argue that people are good. She just lists the things we do to keep from making each other’s day harder, the courtesies so small you’d never think to thank anyone for them properly, because they’re over before you register them.

Her line: “Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.”

That’s it. That’s the whole case. Not that people are good, exactly. Just that most of us, most of the time, given the choice, go out of our way not to hurt the person next to us. My neighbor. My pharmacist. The stranger at the door.

Laméris calls these moments “fleeting temples we make together.” I like that better than any argument I could make myself. It doesn’t ask you to believe the world is fine. It just says: look, here’s one more, and another, right where you weren’t looking.

Her point is that there’s so little of each other left now, that we’re a long way from tribe and fire, and these brief exchanges are most of what we get. Maybe that’s why the small stuff carries more than it should. A held door. A pharmacist who knows your name. A friend who shows up on the day she knows is hard.

It’s not enough. It was never going to be enough.

It just keeps happening anyway. You have to be looking.

Read the full poem here: https://poets.org/poem/small-kindnesses

Doori wa Dosti

July 21st, 2026

Some wisdom doesn’t translate. It just travels. My mother brought hers from Afghanistan, wrapped in Farsi, in a phrase she offered quietly and often: Doori wa Dosti. Distance and friendship. I spent years thinking it was something she said. Now I think it was something she knew.

I’m in my 50s, and I know exactly who my people are.

Not in the way you think you know at 25, when friendship is proximity and shared weekends and whoever happens to be around. I mean I know it the way you know something that had to be lived before it made sense. The women in my life right now, we’re on the same frequency. There’s no performance in it. No managing, no tiptoeing, no wondering where you stand. Some of these women came into my life because our kids were friends. That reason is long gone. They stayed anyway, and that tells you everything. We show up for each other in the ways that matter and we don’t keep score. I don’t take that for granted anymore.

Getting here cost something. I spent years grieving a friendship of 30 years that ended over something that didn’t deserve that much of my heart. I mourned her the way you mourn the dead, except she was still alive, still out there, just no longer someone I knew. The person I was grieving didn’t exist anymore. She had changed. I had changed. What we’d had was real, it was wonderful, she was my sister for a long time, and then we became two people who had grown in completely different directions. That’s not a betrayal. It’s just life.

What I wasted was the grief. The years I spent missing someone who had already moved on. I won’t do that again.

There are people I love now who I see twice a year, and it’s enough. Doori wa Dosti. The distance doesn’t mean the love isn’t real, it means I’ve learned how to hold things without gripping them. And there are people I keep at a gentle arm’s length, not because I don’t care, but because that’s the exact right distance for what we are to each other. My mother knew this. It took me decades to catch up.

What I know now is that the people who drifted away were supposed to. Not everyone is meant to be with you at every stage. Some friendships exist to teach you something, to carry you through a particular season, and when that season ends, so does the friendship. That used to feel like failure. Now it just feels like life moving the way it’s supposed to.

I’m in the middle of one of the biggest transitions of my life, my daughter growing into her own woman, the house quieter, everything shifting. It’s harder than I let on. I want to know she’s okay, what she’s doing, how she’s doing, and when I ask she hears it as control. Maybe she’s right, some of it is. She’s testing things right now, dipping a foot in and pulling it back, trying versions of herself on. Some of it makes me nervous. I don’t know if it’s the right way to do this. I don’t think there is one. I’m learning that my role has to change while she’s still figuring out who she even is, and neither of us has done this before. She’s never grown into an adult before. I’ve never watched my little girl turn into someone I don’t fully recognize yet. We’re both stumbling through a first, just from opposite sides of it. My girlfriends are carrying me through it. My husband, who is my best friend, is right beside me.

I choose to move forward with love, with the people who genuinely see me, who show up, who are worth showing up for. And if you’re somewhere in your own version of this, still carrying relationships that stopped feeding you a long time ago, still grieving someone who already left, I hope you give yourself permission to put it down.

I’d love to know who your people are. Tell me in the comments.

Gone Too Soon

September 4th, 2023

In life sometimes, if we are lucky, we come across individuals whose strength, determination, and selflessness leave an indelible mark on our hearts. My friend Liz was all that, sprinkled with extra sugar and spice! We met when we had just both become mothers for the first time, since then, we navigated life together in our new role as mothers and eventually, a bond of friendship, a sisterhood developed.

Our conversations ran deep, we spoke about everything and anything. We talked a lot about the people who mattered the most to us, our families , parents, siblings, spouses, children, and childhood best friends. We connected because we both knew the value of an authentic friendship. We always made time for one another and touched base once a week, even if it was just a quick call or text. We looked forward to spending time with one another, it almost always resulted in buckets of laughter, tears and lots of good food!

Liz had battled cancer twice before , when she found out that she had cancer again , she was resolved on beating it. “ I did it before, I can do it again! I can beat this! “ I believed that she could. She was amazing , her fight with cancer was quiet but it was fought valiantly, with her quiet reserve, her signature smile and with so much dignity and grace. She never allowed fear to consume her. Our friendship allowed her to share her fears with me and it allowed me to help get her back to faith or just let her cry. She sometimes needed a good cry, we both did, and then we would find something to laugh about! Liz made a conscious decision to embrace life fully, second by second, moment to moment. She was determined to be positive and her family served as the driving force behind her strength.

We lost Liz a month ago today, I miss her deeply.

Her loss was undoubtedly heartbreaking for all who loved her but her memory continues to inspire and uplift. In one of our last conversations, she asked me not to allow myself to wallow in sadness when she passes, but to enjoy every second of life and to keep an eye on her kids. That’s a promise I plan on keeping.

My view of life has been shifted because of my friend. Bit by bit, cancer took parts of her, what remained was her kindness, empathy, wit and her sweetness. She always expressed her gratitude and counted her blessings, she lived for her family. She cherished her friendships and paid attention to foster and nurture those relationships. Her children are amazing, a testament to her and her husband’s loving attention and dedication.

She would joke that dying young meant she would never have wrinkles and that she would be reunited with her mother, who had passed away from cancer only a few years earlier. She missed her lovely mom so much, and I know she was happy to have finally been reunited.

I want to honor her legacy by embracing life with the same passion, compassion, perseverance and determination.

In the end, my friend’s journey was not defined by her battle with cancer, but by her unwavering commitment to love, hope, and making the world a better place for her children. May her story continue to inspire us to be better, to connect, to give more, and to cherish each precious moment we have with those we love.

When I look at her children’s faces, I see her smile and her eyes.

Her absence will forever be felt but I will forever be grateful to have known her beautiful soul.

Until we meet again my sweet friend.💔🙏🏻🌸

A True Friend

September 9th, 2015

In my lifetime I’ve had some amazing friendships. Every one of my friends have left a deep imprint in my life. They are the ones I reached out to in good times and in bad. For whatever reason some are in my past, I cherish the memories I shared with them and will forever be grateful for their love and friendship. The ones that are still with me are my truest friends. They were the ones that kept on holding my hand in my darkest hours. They are the ones that love me despite my faults. Here are the qualities of what a true friend means to me.

Loyalty, True friends are a rare breed of people, those who don’t live life purely for their own self-interest, but take pleasure in seeing you happy and well.

Respect, they’ll never talk about you behind your back in a malicious, negative manner. Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events and small minds talk about people.

Selflessness, they don’t contact you just because they want a favor. A friendship that leaves you feeling taken for granted leaves you helpless and angry. A true friend is a huge advocate and believer in “give and take”. They’re not the kind of people who will only contact you when they have a problem and need your assistance. They will pick up the phone just to say hello. Because they care about you as a person, they will always be wondering how you’re getting on, even if you spend lots of time apart because of work and family responsibilities.

Trust and honesty, a “friend” is one of the few people who you can trust completely with everything in your life. All your pains, your secrets, what is in your heart without feeling judged. In addition to trust, honesty is a quality that is really important to me. I’ve had friends ask my opinion about important things in their lives and when I have answered honestly they’ve been hurt. Some people feel so intimidated by their “friend” that they’re unwilling to criticize them when it matters most. I feel that sometimes we need to be told the absolute truth. I would want my friends to give me honesty when I ask for it.

To be present, it’s so imperative to me to have access to each other in times of pain and happiness. I have a friend who lost her beautiful mother recently and instead of letting me in to help or just to have as a shoulder to cry on she shut me out. I persisted to be there for her, calling her and checking on her but she never really took the time to communicate with me. I realized I was not that important to her, in fact looking back there were so many things she said and did that should have clued me in to that fact. I’m a loyal person and once I love someone, it’s difficult to let go but I knew it was time to let that friendship go. There is no such thing as a one-sided friendship.

Unlike family we choose our friends. We are tied to each other in mutual love and affection. Like family, we sometimes have miscommunications and disagreements. A true friend takes time to listen, express their thoughts and forgive. Someone who can easily toss your friendship away was never really a true friend. Nevertheless I cherish and think well of all my friendships, past and present.

During my childhood, I chose friends that made me smile and feel good. They made me feel loved and wanted. I think that is what we should look for in friendships in our adult years as well. As I get older, I still have a lot of wonderful acquaintances in my life but I have become very choosy with whom I spend my time.

Every wise person I have ever met or looked up to have the same message, spend time with people who will lift you up.

Friends motivate and inspire you and will hope that you will do the same for them. As I get older I choose my friends wisely; quality should always take precedence over quantity.

As I watch my little girl with her friends, I wish her the same kind of love, support and relationships that have sustained me throughout my life. Already I can tell how relevant her friends are to her. She chooses kind, sweet, loving little girlfriends. I pray she will always have the love and support of good friends.

Little Pals

February 26th, 2015

I love watching my daughter grow. It’s such a privilege to be apart of helping form another human being. I love seeing her develop her friendships. She navigates so beautifully towards the right kind of friends. I’m thankful that she is not a “mean” girl. She has always been and continues to be a kind and considerate little girl. She is actually very picky about who she befriends. Her friends posses the same sweet qualities that she has.

Last week she had her first sleepover with her best friend. Watching them interact brought a smile to my face but it also broke my heart just a little bit. It just made me think of all the ups and downs she will experience with her relationships in her lifetime. Friendships are amazing. I know by my own experiences that I couldn’t have made it through life without my friends. I’m thankful for them all. But sometimes our closest friends can also be the ones capable of hurting us the most. I couldn’t help but think of what will happen between her and her best friend five years down the line. Then I snapped myself back to the present and decided to just enjoy watching them be happy little girls now.

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a present. I choose to live in the present.

Cellphone 2015 770 The girls spent the day doing crafts and watching movies. Then they spent the night whispering and giggling well past their bedtime. My husband and I didn’t interfere with their fun. We let them stay up and enjoy the sleepover.

The next day they were up at the crack of dawn, ready for a hearty breakfast. They giggled and told me how they got up and danced in the dark without our knowledge. It seemed to give them joy that they were able to get away with that and we didn’t even know. They wanted to be free and to rebel I guess.

After breakfast they did some singing, played in the snow, went out for lunch, went ice skating and then off to Starbucks for some hot chocolate. As I was waiting for my latte, I looked back at these two little beauties sitting and sipping their hot chocolate and just being silly kids. I could picture them all grown up and out for coffee together. I realize just how fast that can happen. I feel privilidged to spend time with them because I know that one day soon they won’t want me around. These beautiful little people are given to us for a short while to guide, nurture and love. Before we know it, they will fly off and begin their own journey in life.

In the meantime I feel very fortunate to be apart of my daughter’s day to day life and to witness her growth and all her firsts. Life is so much more beautiful with my little love. The one thing I have learned and try to practice is not to get lost in the chaos of everyday life. Stop, be in the present and be grateful for every second of this beautiful life with my loved ones.

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Tag: Friendship

You Have to Be Looking

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Doori wa Dosti

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Gone Too Soon

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A True Friend

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Little Pals

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