Breaking Up & Starting Over: Friendship Edition

We do not talk enough about friendship breakups. Romantic breakups get the songs, the books, the girls' night support system. Friendship loss gets a shrug and a "people grow apart."

In this solo episode, Jojo sits with what it actually means to lose a close friend, not to conflict, not to a fight, but to time, distance, and evolution. After moving away from a decade in New York and starting over in a brand new city, she is facing the hardest part of adult friendship: building connection from the ground up while grieving the people who used to feel permanent.

Inside this episode:

Why making friends as an adult feels so much harder than it used to The difference between a friend for a reason, a season, and a lifetime How to know when a friendship has become misaligned with your season of life Why we take friendship loss personally, even when it was never really about us Processing a friendship breakup when there was no closure What it means to ask yourself not just who you want to find, but who you want to be as a friend

This is a mental, emotional, and spiritual conversation about connection, grief, and growth. If you have ever quietly wondered whether a friendship still fits your life, this one is for you.

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Transcript

Jojo (00:07.534)
Welcome to the Inside Out Podcast. I'm your host Jojo, and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That is mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Jojo (00:28.662)
Happy Wednesday. If you're new here, thank you for joining. And if you are listening every week, I really appreciate your Wednesday mornings or whenever you hear this. Last week I brought back an old episode called Friendship, Toxic or Transformative. And I brought that back because I'm looking at a lot of friendships in my life currently and how making

new friends as an adult or just in general is such an interesting process. We grow up and we are thrown into proximity based on our parents' choices. We go to schools that our parents choose, we make friends because they're around us, but we don't necessarily sometimes always keep those friends. I mean sometimes we definitely do, don't get me wrong, but we didn't choose choose those people. Do you know what I mean?

And I'm not saying later in life you don't keep choosing them. That's not what I'm talking about. But when you're an adult, you start to surround yourself with people who are in similar circles, have similar interests, like minded, or you meet people randomly and they fall into your life in like the most bizarre ways and they become lifelong friends. What's interesting though, as someone who has moved around her whole life.

I'm noticing the evolution of friendships more consciously as I, you know, get older. And what I'm noticing is that it's really hard to make friends as an adult. Can anyone relate? And it's also hard to maintain friendships because people go into different seasons of their life. People evolve, people change.

People start having families, getting married, buying houses, and all of a sudden you're not running around at recess anymore in sixth grade with people doing the exact same thing as you and going to your sports after school or dance classes that you're doing. Now you have a whole new life and a completely different trajectory and different careers.

Jojo (02:56.32)
And then different friend groups. You probably chose different colleges. And and the tree just keeps on growing. The branches keep on getting more and more spread out. And more branches grow and more leaves come off. And and it's very interesting because what I've noticed is when you try to make plans with friends, it's like, yeah, what are you doing next year on this random Thursday? It's not like, hey, let's catch up next week. It's like,

When you live across the country from them, you have to pencil them, it's a process. And it's also a process to maintain those friendships because at the end of the day, like any relationship, it needs to be nurtured, it needs to be cultivated, needs to be watered, and it needs to grow and have room to do so.

And that's also very difficult. So I want to start off by talking about making friends. Now, just from my own personal lens, as I've mentioned many times, I've just moved. I left New York, I was there for almost eleven years, and had a bunch of friends, spent my entire twenties in New York, and I had a really good group of people there. And ever since leaving

I'm noticing how those friendships have evolved and changed. And not in a bad way, just noticing. The communication drops off. It's, you know, not as convenient anymore. And you have to keep actively choosing those people. And now having moved to a completely new place, a new city where I don't know anyone, and what I do for work outside of this podcast, of course.

I'm barely ever home. So even cultivating and growing friendships in this space and in this new city is very difficult because I'm not here much. And for instance, I really had to like break this apart and think about it because if I'm not around and people keep asking me to connect, get together, catch up, you know, go on a first friend date.

Jojo (05:14.082)
And I'm not around, they're gonna start to drop off because you can make a really great connection. But if you don't continue to build upon that connection, it's just gonna be a fleeting moment in time. And that's what kind of made me a little bit sad. Because I come back to this beautiful place and this choice that I've made and the city that I want to be in, and yet I don't have that group of people that I'm like.

All right, when I'm back, I can just, you know, fall back into step. Because I'm having to build that from the ground up again. And if I'm not around to, you know, see these people consistently, it's very difficult to do that. And I had to kind of give myself a start in talking to and look at my life and say, is this worth it? Is me leaving for work.

And working as much as I can and not being home and not being available, is that worth me not being able to have a life to come home to? And the answer was no. And it actually made me stop and say, maybe I need to dial it back on, you know, where I'm putting my energy right now and really focus in and cultivate and build and grow and nurture these new relationships. Because if I don't

Do that, then I'm not gonna have any relationships in my new surroundings, my new area, my new life. When I left New York, like I said, I left a big friend group, a bunch of friends. And also when I left, you know, to move to New York, I left a bunch of friends.

And when you leave, nurturing those relationships that you leave and staying connected is really important. But people have lives. People are busy. And it's not gonna always be easy. And I'm noticing in myself where it's like, we've kind of dropped off on communication. But maybe, maybe you haven't. I've noticed throughout the years that I can go

Jojo (07:30.612)
years sometimes without speaking to someone and then or even you know seeing them and then you just pick up right where you leave off. And that that's a beautiful thing and that's not very common, I understand. And yet maybe that is the expectation that needs to be had. Because if we put a lot of pressure on the people that we are friends with to keep showing up for us consistently when

Certain seasons change. Maybe they're getting married. Maybe they're having a baby. When those things happen, or changing jobs or changing career, whatever it is, when those things happen, you can't just expect things to stay the same. There's gonna be a natural course correction and change. But now me having you know witnessed this so many times over the past, I don't know, my whole life, to be honest, it's where

Does the line come from it being personal to it being just the season? Now I always think about this phrase the reason, a season or a lifetime phrase, where someone's either in your life for a reason that could be to come and course correct you and put you on your path that you need to be on. A season, meaning just very like, you know.

Proximity wise, you lived in the city, it's very transient, you know, you were friends and then you kinda moved on with your lives and it was great and it was fine. Or a lifetime where you have those like really, really deep rooted connections with people that just don't break.

And I've had to get honest with myself. A lot of people have just been a season. And while that is really, really hard to to be okay with and to navigate, you can't take everyone with you. Because the moment that you try to put everyone on your back and take them to your next place, your backpack, whatever you're holding on to, is just gonna get heavier and heavier and heavier. The people that come with you.

Jojo (09:32.948)
Into different seasons of your life, the lifetime friends and

They're not holding you back. They're not dimming your light. They're not toxic. And unfortunately, a lot of us have pretty toxic people around us. And I'm saying that very blatantly, and I understand that I'm doing that. I'm saying it for a reason. Because there are people in our immediate circles that we have a

kind of a guilty conscience about, you know, spending time with them or it's hard to spend time with them or they have a very different lifestyle than you and you're trying to adjust and course correction change. And maybe it's like, for instance, every single time you go out with this friend, like you're drinking and you just you want to be healthier or not drink as much or anything. But this is the one person and maybe they've been around you for years. But it just doesn't fit your season of life now.

So where does that leave the friendship? I think friendship is a really tricky topic because it takes a lot of reflection and internal, you know, diagnosis. Because as we evolve and change, other people are also going to evolve and change, except we don't see or hear their, you know, day to day thought processes and their entire course. So we take it personally.

Now I want to ask you why. Why do you think you take it personally? Because it's not so much about you. I mean, think about it. The friends that you don't have anymore, it had nothing to do with like anything really going wrong. I mean, maybe, of course, there are the instances where someone really, really messes you over. However,.

Jojo (11:35.476)
Usually it's just kinda you drift apart. And it's like, you know, it was like we're friends because I was in that city or, you know, 'cause we we're going to the same places and da da da da da. But, you know, nothing ever really happened. It's just we just went in different directions. And that's just it is what it is. Like it's cool. Like we're we're fine, but it's it's just fine. But then you have the friendships that were the deep ones. The really, really close ones. And

I'm not sure if any of you listening have gone through a friend breakup, but I have. And I have in the last year. And this was someone I was extremely close with. Like reading each other's minds, type of close. However, maybe that was too much. Maybe that was too codependent. Maybe that was too reliant on each other because it didn't allow us to really.

Truly be our own people. I mean, we were our own people, of course, but there was just such an interconnectedness. When one of us wanted to adjust in course correct or change, the other one wasn't really able to grasp it. And so that makes it really hard to maintain that that connection, which is really sad. Looking back, of course, it's needed.

And it needed to happen and things needed to adjust and shift and change and you know, more or less evolve. Now I don't know what the end relationship of this person and I is, but I know that they're not in my life. At least currently. And that's okay. Because sometimes people need to go down their own path and figure out their own needs.

And it's even in like a romantic relationship, if I think about it, if you're with someone and things aren't going very well and you need to like take a step back, sometimes you need to take a step back to reevaluate and then you come back together and you're stronger. I'm not saying that's what's gonna happen or not gonna happen. I'm just saying

Jojo (13:50.218)
This is my specific journey right now.

Jojo (13:55.85)
Now, because of the closeness of

That I had with this person for a very long time, many, many years.

I knew them my entire time in New York, like basically since day one. Looking at friendships now and building new friendships

It's sad in a way, because

You had someone that was really, really close to you, and now you're essentially starting over. Now, maybe you're listening to this and you're fresh out of a breakup. And I want to acknowledge that because this is a breakup. While not a romantic one, it's still a very painful one. And romantic breakups are also very, very painful. So

Jojo (14:51.374)
Take this as you will. I mean you could be listening to this in the lens of like I just went through a breakup and I have to start over and date again. Also very true.

Jojo (15:04.92)
But the thing with a friendship breakup is that it gives you perspective of yourself, and if you really look at it, what happened, why it happened, and how you can evolve and change and not put the same pressures on yourself or another person and have different expectations or have no expectations. I mean, no expectations is best. The minute you have expectations on something, that's when everything can really go awry.

As we evolve and grow, we outgrow versions of ourselves. We outgrow situations. We outgrow people. And I think we need to be more accepting of that. More accepting of people who need to outgrow us too. And really allow for that space and that readjustment so that we can build stronger in ourselves and our own foundations and talk about it. I mean, no one really talks about friendship breakups. I mean, really, it's like.

Pretty hard. And also, no one really talks about how hard it is to make a good friend and build a friendship that lasts. I think there's a lot that goes into this, and that's why I wanted to kind of break this open a little bit and share, you know, where I'm at.

Because friendship loss is real and we don't really grieve that the same way we grieve other loss. But there needs to be an acknowledgement and an awareness about it and that it's okay and it's not your fault and that

just brushing it under the rug and acting like it's not there is not gonna help.

Jojo (16:52.694)
And maybe understanding why it ended is important. And maybe that closure and that conversation of what's going on and why the friendship isn't there anymore needs to happen. That's going to be subjective and really, you know, kind of personal to each situation. But for instance, I never had closure. I've had two big friendship breakups in my life. People that I thought, again, would be in my life forever. They're not in my life. But I never really understood why.

I still don't. And that's a lot of internal work that I probably still need to do in order to understand. I mean, I've definitely looked at parts of myself and been like, okay, well, this, this, this, and this. Or maybe I was whatever way with them and they, you know, couldn't handle it, or whatever, I was too much of X, Y, and Z. Or maybe it's just having that conversation and getting that clarity. But

In order to make friends, you really have to put yourself out there. You really have to be open. I mean, there's Bumble BFF out there now. There's, you know, these meetups. There's choosing friends in proximity to us because of choices that we made. Not choices our parents made, choices we made. And maybe that is easier because you're being around like-minded people and you're able to really sink in.

Into yourself, and therefore you're building authentic connections because you're doing things that you like, the other people like, so you're building those relationships. But then it's time and not expecting it to just be an overnight success. You really have to spend time with these people. You really have to do things, you have to be honest, you have to be transparent, you have to be vulnerable, you have to be open and not carry.

fear or pain or anything. I mean, think about when you leave a an ex partner. If you're carrying all your baggage from that last relationship into the new one and start projecting it all over them, how successful is that going to be?

Jojo (19:04.792)
These are all lessons. Everyone's a reflection. Everyone is a lesson. And I think just having that awareness and that acuity around this is like really important because as people change and grow and evolve, I've said that nineteen thousand times now. We are gonna do the same.

And having that malleability for both to be true and okay and room for that instead of being rigid and stuck in our ways and expecting everything to be a certain way that it always was, that's not really life. So let's get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I want you to ask yourself mentally.

Jojo (20:00.17)
Is there a friendship in your life that has changed or that you've outgrown?

That's a tough one. Emotionally. Are you actually grieving the person, the history, or what could have been when you're letting this friendship go?

And spiritually. What did this friendship come into your life to teach you?

Because it wasn't for no reason.

And now ask yourself, just as a little, you know, bonus, what kind of friend do you want to be right now? Not just find, but be.

Jojo (20:48.632)
Well, you guys, I know that was a little bit of a deep one. And I hope it gives some insight, some clarity. Maybe you're asking yourself some questions you haven't really had the answers to. But I hope that really like breaks something open for you because the deeper that I get into my new life, the more I'm thinking about this, and the more I'm talking to people in my life about this, and realizing the other people are thinking the same things, and really wondering like how and

What and what can I do? And how do I, you know, really keep old relationships from a different era of my life while also building new ones. And maybe it's just as simple as picking up the phone and calling someone or catching up or making space for that person or truly just, you know, next year on the calendar putting something on it. Because friendships are really, really foundational. Connection is really important.

So don't let things just dissipate if they are quality. Build new friendships, find people in the same sphere as you. Grow with those people, transform with those people, evolve. That's the whole point. And with that, I hope you guys have a great week. Hope had a lovely fourth of July whenever you're listening to this. And I'll see you guys next week.

Remember to follow at underscore insideout.podcast. Share this episode with a friend, even the one that you might need to break up with. Just kidding. Or maybe, I don't know. And make sure you subscribe to the Substack because I send a lot of information out from there. A lot more to come, you guys, and I'm excited to keep growing, evolving, and changing with you. Stay Messi. Bye!