I don't want friends, I want connection.
On finding your people at 30.
Last week, I took a train to the northern part of England and visited one of my life-long friends who now lives there with her husband. I was able to see their new home, their neighborhood. To get a fuller, deeper sense of their lives that you can’t really gather from a group chat. We took the walk by the sea they take on weekends, visited their favorite market, took the train they catch into the city center, stood in the sweet garden they have big plans for. More than once, my friend and I looked at each other and thought: Isn’t it weird that we’re here? That we met each other as kids in Tampa, Florida, and now this is your house and you live here and I’m here visiting you, too?
I imagine this is probably just part of getting older and settling into your life, your home, your career. You have more moments of stepping back and marveling at it than you did in your 20s, when you’re constantly spinning your wheels, trying to find purpose, money, friends, hap…