136. Some Friends Are Eternal

We’re talking friendship; what makes a good friend, what keeps a friend and when is it okay to say goodbye to a friend. 

We hope you’re enjoying the show and if you want to contribute to the conversation leave us a comment or review, we’d love to hear what you think! 

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Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and leave us some stars over on Spotify. You can email us at littlegiftspodcast@gmail.com or find us on isntagram @littlegiftspodcast. 

Find Sue Ellens artwork at www.sueellenparkinson.com or connect with her on instagram @sue.ellen.parkinson. And the same goes for Savanna! Find more about her practice at www.savannawonderwheel.com or connect on instagram @savannabeing. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's that and there's this underlying question, can you really love somebody and be distant from them? And I know you can really love somebody and be distant from them because I've had that experience. Some friends are eternal, and I really think that that's true. And I like to think about the people that I don't see all the time in that context. Welcome to the Little Gifts Podcast. This is Sue Ellen Parkinson. And I'm her granddaughter, Savannah Wonderwheel, and we're on a journey together to find deeper meaning and magic in the day-to-day. We're so happy to have you join us.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Let's start that over again. Good morning, Savannah. Good morning, Grandma. Oh sometimes you just need to do that. Sometimes you just need to do a little start over.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, well, in the professional world, they have this person that goes one, two, three, and then you know when to start, but we don't have anything fancy like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

No. And I've been doing that more in war too, and in just not that this isn't real life, but in in my life when something's happening, there's something that's like clunky. I'm just I have just gotten into the habit of being like, can we just start this over again? Can we just start from zero? So like even if I've already been to someone and we're like talking and then it gets me, I'm just like, can we just start from scratch? It really does happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Oh, if things turn off on a confused note, yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's a good thing to do. Well, so we were gonna talk about all the the interesting phases that friendships go in.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

And you introduced this topic, so I'm curious where the like what kind of brought this friend of mind to you or kind of what's going on that had this at the forefront of your of your mind for it to be something for us to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Well, I've been feeling pretty tender. I've been missing Dobby, my friend Dobby, who passed away, and we had once been incredibly close. I mean, we really spent a lot of time together, had a lot of laughs, shared a lot of, you know, deep soul type stuff. And then we we kind of drew apart fell apart, you know, um, and I wasn't didn't see that much of her before she passed away. And part of it was due to the illness that she had, which was dementia, and she had a brain tumor, but there was there were other things too. But I'm thinking about that just in terms of my entire life and how I had gotten very close to different people and then either moved away or drifted apart or something like that. And it just seems like a topic worth talking about.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

I mean, I thought we could start with just talking a little bit about what makes a really good friend for somebody and why that why that happens. And the first word that popped into my head was it's effortless. I I don't like a friendship that I have to work on a lot, you know. That's not something that appeals to me. I want friendship to be a place of rest and restoration, you know. And somebody understands me on a deep level, deeper than surface level, you know, they understand me and value that inner life. And also, if they've got a good sense of humor, then away we go. I get yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Having some similar sense of humor, I think is so important.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, or just a good sense of humor. I mean, I used to have this friend, Wendy, and she she just I don't think I've ever laughed so hard as when I was with her. It's just amazing. But she's kind of an example, also. She had um addiction issues, and I I don't think I ever stopped loving her. I always really loved her, but I just had to separate for my own sense of well-being, sanity, basically.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Totally, which is really painful to have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Mm-hmm. And that's something I think we've talked about a little bit on here in the past, though, of just like that pain of friendship relationships ending, and how societally we don't put them as high a value as romantic relationships, but in some ways they can be deeper and more intense. And and in some ways it's like that pain of a friendship ending can be even harder than the pain of like a romantic relationship ending for one, just because other people don't see it as a thing to be as upset about. You know, if you tell someone I'm going through a breakup, people get it. They're like, oh, I'm so sorry, all the stuff. But if you sell tell someone I'm losing a friend, it's just not as valued. I think, you know, a lot of people would hear that and be like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. But I think just in a lot of ways, it's not given as much weight.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Well, our lives are so full. You know, you were talking about that. Well, when somebody gets a partner who has been single and they've had all their time to spare to spend with you or whatever, and then they get coupled, it just seems to happen that um the friendship gets put on the back burner because relationships, you know, romantic relationships seem to really take a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I mean, that's like the thing that's crazy is just all relationships take a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

To maintain any relationship takes a lot of time. I've had my fair share of relationships that have ended in one way or another or have changed in one way or another. But something that I'm like really noticing now is in some ways it's also easier to build friendships when you're younger. Obvious, I mean, obviously, especially in younger, younger years. But even into your 20s, it's just there's more spaciousness in our lives to just randomly go hang out with someone and like get to know them more and all this stuff. And I feel like I've been noticing the feeling of building new friendships lately and how there's this tendency to want to rush the process, to be like, oh, we're there, we've deepened, but how important it is to actually like let it be slow and let it build and not try to put more on the relationship than is there yet, and just like taking that spacious time and and how it really does take time to build that.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, I I mean, I think that that's part of why I'm feeling bad about Dobby's death, and that is that I think, well, I should have been there more, and then I think uh, but on the other hand, I feel like I can barely get through my day. I'm so busy and I have my own limitations around energy and health and my own problems. But I'm just noticing, and especially amongst my friends, there is a real tenderness that's that I'm seeing come up more and more around people who are aging and feeling which I am in that group, and I'm feeling the the tenderness around being set aside kind of thing, or not being in a central position anymore. In somebody's life or yeah, in the family's life, in the whatever, in the community. I don't need to mention names here, but I have a friend who's an elder and she's elder than me. And and she used to do everything in the community, and she could not do that anymore. So she's just not in the mix like that. But it's like a tender issue, and I I feel it with myself every once in a while too. Because so much of that activity is what what defines us in this culture. Shouldn't be, but that is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, and when you're in the habit of seeing people when it's tied to some activity, like if it's some, you know, group that gets together once a month, if it's like an activism thing or a volunteer thing, or even if it's just like a, you know, this is the group of people that we get together once a month with kind of thing. And then for whatever reason, I'm just thinking your example of like being in the community where if then you're not in a role like you used to be, and you're not going to that monthly check-in and getting those check-ins just because you're there and doing some form of work that keeps you showing up, then those people that you maybe felt like you had a really close relationship with you're never seeing anymore and not really talking to anymore. And it's probably not because of a lack of care or love on their end. It's probably just because they were used to seeing you at this one time and place all the time and they don't see you there anymore. And so it's just out of sight, out of mind. And then somehow three years goes by and you're like, I haven't seen or talked to this person. It's weird for me to reach out now. And then I think that's the other part too for me. These people that I maybe did feel close with at some point or that felt like there was some budding friendship at some point, and there was some like consistency, and then a big chunk of time goes by, and then all get that feeling of like, well, now is it weird for me to reach out when this much time has gone by, or like they haven't reached out in that much time either? So, like, do are they just happy for this to go away? Or is there weird feelings going on? Yeah, or are there weird feelings going on, or did I like accidentally hurt somebody's feelings? Is that why they're not reaching out? But then it's also this like overflow of being like, Well, am I overthinking it? Would this person be weirded out if I texted them and was like, hey, did I hurt your feelings? Why haven't we talked in a while? But like when you were never that close to begin with, but you were just beginning to get that kind of ground in your footing. I can think of one woman in particular as kind of coming to mind right now where we'd kind of run in similar worlds for a few years. And so we see we would see each other kind of coming and going from different classes or different spaces that we were just doing similar things in, but not really connecting that much, just little kind of surface check-ins, but had done some deep trainings together kind of thing. And then we slowly started seeing each other kind of once every couple months. We'd had a few hangouts, and then I feel like I reached out to hang out at one point and she was like, Yeah, definitely. I'm a little busy right now, but let me get back to you next week. And then she never got back. And so then I'd let some more time go and I sent another message and was like, Hey, I'd still love to see you, and then never really heard back, and then now it's been months, and then the social media of it all is so weird. We're like, we'll still occasionally comment on each other's stuff or like send each other a little message, but there's no acknowledgement of the fact that we, in my opinion, felt like we were building some form of friendship, and then that just kind of disappeared. And it's like, you know, that question of okay, do I want to invest time in figuring out what happened? Or is that just a sign that it wasn't a fit? I don't need to invest my time in it. I don't know. I'm curious what you would think about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

There's that, and there's this underlying question can you really love somebody and be distant from them? And I know you can really love somebody and be distant from them because I've had that experience when I, you know, I when I think about how close I was to Mr. Miyuki, and I think of him as my probably my most life-changing teacher. I mean, I'll always be grateful for him. And I saw him once a week for for a very long time. And I know it was hurtful, probably hurtful on some level, when I just said announced one day that I was moving away. And I thought, well, I'll keep in touch with him via telephone, but his accent was very, very thick, and it was hard for me to understand him over the phone. For some reason, I could understand him perfectly in person. In fact, he used to come comment on it, but over the phone I could not, so it was awkward, and and we just kind of lost touch. But he had said this thing that is a beautiful statement to his daughter about me that some friends are eternal. I really think that that's true, and I like to think about the people that I don't see all the time in that context. You know, my childhood friend Debbie, we veered off completely. Her lifestyle was really pretty a rich lifestyle, and I've always been on the poverty level kind of, and and yet when we connected, we were just totally in sync. We were those same kids that met in third grade. Yeah. It's interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Is there any? Do you have any examples of people in your life that you feel like you were really tight with? You kind of drifted off for a while, and then you got back, drifted together again, or like have you noticed those cycles? I'm just curious since you've lived more life than I have.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, well, I did that with Dobby in my life. We were very, very close for a number of years, and then we kind of we c we came to a strong sense of difference about guys to be appointed. And then I ran into her later and she said she actually made an apology to me, and we started seeing each other again, and then we got really close again, and then we fell apart again. But I still feel like she is one of those eternal friends. So I miss her, miss the fact that she's walking on the earth, but I'm also thinking about um some friendships suddenly become difficult when they have been effortless, you know. If you go off on a different uh form of study or you're you're like expanding in some part of your life, and sometimes people don't want you to change, they want you to be the same person you've always been to them because that's understandable. And in that case, I kind of I need to separate out a bit, and I'll probably pull away.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

And when that comes up for you, is that like a conversation that you have, or is that something that you just kind of do on your own and then see what happens?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I guess I just do it on my own. I mean, uh, we could I could have a seems like that would be a lot of conversations. I've sort of had it come up about my doing my work, being so committed to my path as an artist. And I think most people have a hard time understanding that.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

I was curious if there was an example of what that felt like for you when that's happened.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I mean, I don't know what they think I'm doing. I they just don't understand the concept. And then there's also this thing of a person who's self-employed and a person who goes into a nine to five job. I mean, that's a very different lifestyle. And I think people don't realize the amount of work that goes into keeping the ball rolling. Totally. And we do have to feel like we connect on some level.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

That's a thing that I definitely relate to that feeling of like having to keep the ball rolling and going off and doing different things. And there's aspects of it where it's like, yeah, I'm going and doing this thing because I'm curious about it and interested in it and wanting to learn go do it to experience it and learn. And then there's also an aspect of anything I sign up for to go do. I also have in my mind that this is a whole new group of people that I'm gonna be introducing myself to, introducing my work to, that I can make connections to. It's like everything that I go do that is a, you know, just like fun thing to go do is also fully networking event too, in a way. And it's it's not to say that I'm going into all these circles, being like, okay, who can I get to work with me or who can I get to like collaborate on something with, but there is a level of going into these spaces and being like, I just have to keep going into new spaces and like going and deepening these relationships in these other spaces if I want to allow my work to grow and shift in a way that I can't do if I'm if I'm not going and cycling through these new people's lives in some way.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And you're expanding, you're changing. I mean, that's what I get at. I think of it as one big university. I'm going out there, and each time I get exposed to something new or learn something new, even if it's just watching another teacher, you know, you're learning a lot from that. And so, yeah, on some level, I feel like it's all contributing to my livelihood too, which thank God for Mr. Miyuki. Once again, he would point that out how in order to be spiritually developed, you need to be working on all the chakras all the time. But ideally, you should be creative and expressive and working on making your living and all the you know, interlacing the whole thing, the whole thing working together, ideally. And I think in this culture, a lot of people separate them out. Now I'm doing my spiritual work, now I'm doing my bread and butter, all that stuff. So it's helpful for me to have a friend who at least understands that. And I don't have many friends who understand that.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

And that's a thing that I was talking with somebody about recently, too, of just like if there's a friendship that you feel strongly about, but you don't have that match, for example. That's okay too. There's the places where we need all these different types of people in our lives for different reasons. You know, it's great to have those people that relate to me in that like solo business owner, self-employed world and the world where it's kind of like our employment and spirit and life. It like is all very swirled. But a lot of the times when I get with those people, we just end up talking about the work I've done. And it's oftentimes not, but like sometimes that can be the habit where it's like we just fall into then talking about it, which is helpful because it's good to know that somebody relates, but then it's like going to somebody who is a friend that's not at all in that world. It's like, okay, we go to and we can talk about something totally different because they're not even gonna have any concept of what it is that I'm going through in this side. So it's just trying to hold those different values. And at least for me, just stepping into that place of like just because somebody can't necessarily relate to what it is that I'm doing doesn't mean that we don't relate in other ways, and that those other ways aren't just as important in many places too, and that I do need those like other perspectives and those other ways of being to round out those edges a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I agree that diversity is really, really important.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah, I was talking to a friend recently who she she's a little older than me, she's in her mid-50s, but we do similar work. And she had just before meeting up with her, she'd just been with another friend who works in a totally different realm. This other friend is like a very high-powered lawyer, and they were meeting, and she was like, you know, it's been tricky at times where like she just is in that lawyer mentality, that lawyer pace, all so black and white with stuff. And we were talking about this kind of of that feeling of like friendships getting a little less intimate and then getting more. And when is the time to work for it and when is the time not to? And she kind of had in her mind, she was like, I was feeling kind of like what you said, Grandma, of like I might just need to kind of step away. And she was like, But I also have known this person for 20 years and feel like that's a long time to just step away because we're communicating in different ways. And so she said that she went to her and just said, Hey, I love you, but the way that we're relating and the way that we're having conversations just isn't feeling nourishing to me. Like it's not feeling good to my system. Like, is there any way we can just try something different? See what happens, you know? And she said the lady was a little taken aback, but then really softened and was just like, Okay, I hear you. I can try. And now they've really been it's been good again. And every once in a while, you know, they'll start talking and it'll get all edgy and yes, this and no, this, and this has to be this way, and this has to be that way. And she'll just be like, Hey, can we soften up a bit? And the lady, she does, and she said it's kind of renewed their friendship in a way, and so that was really, really beautiful to hear that little story.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Another example of a courageous conversation, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Well, and I think that's one of the hard things too, is like we can value or we can get ourselves to be like, okay, well, I have my partner, I'll have the difficult conversation with them. And then when it's friendships, it can be hard to even like hype yourself up to have that difficult conversation because there can be this feeling of like, oh, am I just gonna be bringing them down? Am I just gonna be a pain in their ass? Like, do they have space for this conversation? I don't even know if they would want to do it, but at least in my experience now, having those conversations has always paid off and deepens the friendship.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Have you ever had a relationship where people did just naturally grow apart because your interests got so divergent? Um trying to think.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I mean, for me, it's more so I've had friendships grow apart because people moved or changed jobs, or just yeah, that's a big one. And again, they're kind of these like more budding friendships that aren't super in it yet, but are starting to form and then they move away, or they again change jobs, or something kind of shifts, and we're just not seeing each other as regularly. And then otherwise, my friendships that have ended that are really close friendships, it hasn't been as subtle of a like, oh, our interest just grew apart and we just kind of faded. It was definitely more of a like, what the fuck just happened? Like that was like a really intense, weird situation. I don't know what's going on. This person was super in my life and suddenly they're not returning my calls or answering my texts, and then I'm trying to do the mental math of what the fuck just happened. But I've had that experience a couple of times.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Uh I think I had um, you know, especially back in the day when I was back in Los Angeles, I had some friends that were like all about guys and hooking up with guys, and that at some point my interest just totally shifted from that was not where I wanted to be focusing on my energy. And those people sort of fell away. It turned into a new re new, really different relationship. But I know that they felt hurt also, those people. Yeah, it's tricky. Well, and people go through things uh, you know, periods of individuation where they just need to separate out and find who they are, really. I think sometimes we don't always feel, you know, we're not always quite sure. We know something needs to shift within ourselves. And for me, solitude really helps me find my way through those periods. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Well, I'm curious what you have, or if you have any little nuggets of wisdom when you think back of to the friendships. That really have stayed consistent through your life? And you know, obviously things all kind of ebb and flow a little bit, but the people who are like the threads that have lingered the longest and somewhat most consistent, like what is it in your dynamics, or what have you done? Have you done anything intentionally to maintain that? Or has there been any, was there any kind of like acknowledgement from the two of you to be like, okay, we're gonna like maintain this in this way or we're gonna commit to keeping this going in this way, or did it just happen on its own?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

A bit of wisdom, life wisdom really helps carry you through. I mean, I'm thinking of my friend Nan really pops into my mind because we've been friends for so long and gone through different periods where we were very, very tight and then not so tight. And we're sort of in a not so tight time right now, but we check in at least, you know, once a month, maybe twice a month, and just really just have a long good chat. And then we're in different groups together, so we'll see each other in in those contexts. But bottom line is we just cut each other a lot of slack. Yeah, we don't have to perform for each other, and if either one of us is tired or just too busy, we totally get it. Yeah, yeah, you gotta be generous with your friends and your family members and your partners and everybody, I think.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Definitely be generous, yeah. It's like a good note to end on. Yeah. Do you have a little gift?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Oh my goodness, you tell me your little gift first.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Okay. Mine is that I'm gonna give a little love to Joe McDonald, one of my longtime friends and work mentors, and she's my Pilates mentor and little work wife. And I've started taking regular sessions from her again. And I've been doing that for the last few weeks, and it's just felt so good to get back in the swing of things with this movement practice that I teach every week and don't always make time for myself to do. I've not been good at practicing what I'm preaching a little bit lately. And so it's been really, really great to get back into sessions with her and just to like see her really in her element and doing the thing she loves. And I'm just so appreciative for her. And I've been, as I've been doing these different realms of my work and just like really feeling grateful for her as one of my foundational teachers and someone who has really just given me immense amount of her time with no no ask on the other end of it or no no expectation or anything, it just like out of the goodness of her heart and seeing something in me that she wants to help support and that she wants to help encourage and lift up. And yeah. So Joe McDonald, she's so great.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

She is great, she's a good friend and a good teacher. Yeah. Both those things. Well, right when you after you asked that a woodpecker went wild outside here, and I have to say, I've been seeing so many woodpeckers lately. I'm almost thinking we should name our little road Woodpecker Way. Oh, cute. But it's it's just, I'm wondering what that energy is that's out there. They're I mean, I'll see three or four a day. Oh, wow. Yeah, they're really out there. So I think the little gift is the woodpeckers today.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, what do you have to learn from the woodpeckers?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Save those nuts.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

What do you need to be pecking? I need a stronger beak. Okay, well, I love you, grandma.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

I love you too.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

And we're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

We love you, little gifters. Talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

If you're a lover of the Little Gifts podcast, please share that love with the world. Leave us a review or give us some stars wherever you listen to your podcasts. And while you're at it, you could send this episode to someone in your life that you know could use some TLC. Word of mouth recommendations are the best marketing a podcast could ask for, and every recommendation means the world to us. To keep in touch, you can find us on Substack or Instagram at LittleGifts Podcast, and we host a monthly community care circle on the last Sunday of every month that can be found through our Substack. You can also send us an email at LittleGiftspodcast at gmail.com, and as always, all of this info and more can be found in the show notes. And we want to give a special thanks to Robin O'Brien for gifting us her music to use for this show. Thanks for being on this journey with us.