The Friendship Equation
Friendship gets harder as you get older. Not the concept, just the logistics.
I keep in touch with a handful of friends I’ve known for most of my life. We check in, send voice notes, maybe meet up when schedules allow. But the truth is, I miss the kind of friendships that feel lived-in, the ones built on unplanned time and shared silence.
It’s not that I’ve lost the desire, just the bandwidth. Between work, parenting, creative projects, and the constant hum of modern life, the space for deep friendship often gets crowded out.
Lately, I’ve been trying to reverse that. Not through big gestures or group chats, but small intentional moves: sending a message just to say I thought of someone, setting a reminder to actually follow up, inviting someone to grab coffee with no agenda.
It’s humbling to realize how much friendship, like art, requires practice. It’s not about frequency, it’s about attention. About letting people know they matter in real time, not just in memory.
Maybe the equation isn’t about making time, but about making meaning in the time we do have.