Gum on My Shoe

Somebody asked me if I knew you. A million memories flashed through my mind, but I just said, I used to. — Unknown This post was inspired by my friend Louise who sent me a short video from a day trip to Mallorca. After showing me the blue sky, sandy beach, and palm trees Louise focused on a magazine open beside her. “I’ve just been reading this article,” she said. “I thought you’d find it interesting.” The article was Why don’t we treat friendship breakups as seriously as romantic ones? by Michelle Elman. According to the magazine, the author “has had her fair share of heartbreak but when her best friend of eight years ghosted her, she felt a new, confusing kind of loss.” Louise was right. Friendships, especially mutually supportive ones, are important to both of us. We’ve been firm friends since we met online in 2019. Coincidentally, her trip to Mallorca fell on the fourth anniversary of us meeting in person for the first time. That morning I’d shared social media memories ...

I think everybody should get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that that’s not the answer. (Jim Carrey) At certain moments, I find myself asking some of life’s great unanswerable questions. What is my purpose? Is this all there is? Is it enough? And, come to that, what does “enough” mean, anyway? Two songs offer contradictory insights: “ Alone Tonight ” by English rock band Genesis, and “ Never Enough ” from the musical drama film The Greatest Showman . Alone Tonight It’s not enough, it’s not enough This feeling I’m feeling inside I’ve known the Genesis track most of my adult life. Its cry of not enough echoes from a place of almost existential emptiness. There’s an emotional paralysis too; an inability or unwillingness to imagine things will change or improve. It’s the archetypal cry of the lonely, and I know it well. I included it in a post on loneliness for Mental Health Awareness Week 2022. My earliest memory of loneliness goes back to...

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then You are not friends, And friendship has passed. And whole days are lost and among them A fountain empties itself. — Brian Patten, “Sometimes It Happens” Fran and I talk a lot about friendship. We post about it on social media. We blog about it here. We wrote a book based on our experience as transatlantic best friends. We believe friendships are healthiest and most resilient where there’s a commitment to honest and open communication. That’s not to say, of course, that honesty and openness guarantee a friendship will last forever. Things change, and that’s as true of friendship as anything else. Fran and I have weathered more than a few storms over the years. I’d say we’re stronger for it. But not all change is navigable and not all friendships endure. That’s something I’ve not written about before, although it’s a topic I’ve wanted to explore for a long time. The starting point for this article was a conversation with ...

I’m going to talk about a few things said to me over the years by people who have what I do not: lived experience of mental illness. They’ve been hard to hear but I’m grateful because I’ve learned something valuable each time. “You don’t understand” They say we all have mental health but as Fran and I describe in our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder there’s a fundamental difference in experience between someone like Fran who lives with mental illness and someone like me who never has. Well or ill, we are all people. Nevertheless, it is naive, disrespectful, and dangerous to downplay the impact illness has on those affected by it. Those who are ill […] have particular life experiences, perceptions, expectations, and needs. To use Fran’s terminology, she is the ill one in our relationship; I am the well one. Nothing more or less is implied by our use of these terms. High Tide, Low Tide , Introduction So when someone tells me I don’t un...