Friendships for Grownups: How to Make, Keep, and Release Friendships in Midlife with Author Laura Tremaine
Show Snapshot:
Ready to navigate midlife with the right people by your side? Want to develop and nurture friendships that offer connection, solidarity, joy, and fun? Author Laura Tremaine helps us decode friendships for grownups with thoughtful prompts from her latest book, “The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs.” We get into how to find and make new friends as an adult (yes, this is totally possible!), ways to nurture old friendships, navigating friendship rifts, online versus IRL relationships, and the five friendship philosophies that Laura uses in her own life. Plus, why it may be time to stop thinking of your spouse as your best friend.
Show Links:
Follow Laura
Laura’s Podcast: 10 Things To Tell You
Laura’s Book: The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs
Quotable:
I really champion the idea of a new friend—I think that old friends get all the glory because of course they do. But new friends can be such a special part of your life because they are meeting you wherever you are in this midlife stage. And most of us have fought hard to become whoever we are in midlife, and they like you as that person.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to a certain age a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host Katie Fogarty beauties. We're diving into a delicious topic. Today, we're exploring the art, science and wonder of female friendships. And we're doing it with one of the most thoughtful voices in the online space. Laura Tremaine is a writer podcaster and the host of the podcast 10 things to tell you. Her latest book is The Life council 10 friends every woman needs, Laura grew up in Oklahoma and moved to Los Angeles sight unseen when she was 22 to work in film and TV production at MTV, VH one Fox and Paramount Pictures before pursuing writing full time, she has been sharing her life online for a decade plus, she writes about friendship, anxiety, motherhood and marriage, her writing and work explore ways women can more deeply connect with others, to create rich life enhancing relationships as they transform from one area of life into another. This is a theme that is near and dear to the spirit of a certain age podcast. And so excited for this conversation. Welcome, Laura.
Laura Tremaine 1:12
Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here to talk about this.
Katie Fogarty 1:16
Well, this is such a treat, because I've been following you online. And I am so thrilled to be connecting sort of in person over Mike. And one of the reasons why I reached out to you when I saw that you publish the live counsel was because when I thought to myself, 10 friends, every woman needs you know, this is so resonant to me really spoke to me. Because I'm a massive believer in the power of friendships. I would love to just start with some stage setting. What made you sit down and write the life Council?
Laura Tremaine 1:46
Well, first of all, I'm glad that that subtitle didn't scare you because 10 friends every woman needs and then they're like, Nope, I already feel like I don't have 10 friends, I don't even want to open this book, because that concept is so scary. But I decided to write this book because in my decade of writing online, like I started as a mommy blogger, almost 14 years ago, and then I became a podcaster. And in all of these years, one of the things that got the most comments that got the most angst that really brought up a lot of women's feelings was adult friendship. And every time I wrote about, like, in the early days, I was writing a little bit about how lonely I was in Los Angeles, this huge city of 10 million people. I thought when I had children that that would bring mom friends right away. None of that happened for me. So in those years, when I was writing about my loneliness, so many women also wanted to talk about their loneliness that like adult friendships didn't feel how they thought it would feel, or how pop culture tells it tells us that.
Katie Fogarty 2:55
Yeah, that's so interesting, we're definitely going to dive into the ways that we can make an a sort of keep and nurture relationships later in life. Because you know, the beginning of our days, it's really easy. You know, your friend is somebody that you're sitting next to in the lunchroom, or that your elementary school teacher seats you next to but it gets a little bit harder. I definitely want to explore that. But let's I also want to have like maybe one more stage setting question because something that you said in your book also really grabbed me you say, quote, outside of my immediate family. My friendships are my most important relationships and giving them so much priority for filling me up in ways that marriage motherhood in my career couldn't. And that really spoke to me as well, because I agree like the relationships that I have with my women friends, and they're not all women, but are some of the most important in my life. Before we dive into how to make all these amazing friends and the different types of friends that would have, what do you see for yourself is the benefit of a rich network of friendships in your own life?
Laura Tremaine 3:56
Well, for me, I feel like I can get so mired in the duty of life. So being a mother pursuing a career, you know, working on my marriage, and there's all these resources for how we can do better at all of those things. Right parenthood, career, marriage, and friendship is supposed to be a given. But for me, Friendship is the fun of my life. It is like the flavor of my life. And of course, I love my family and I love being a mother and everything but friendship to me is a totally different flavor that brings me a lot of life. It provides like adventure, it brings out parts of my personality that are not present in my family roles. You know, I can feel like a much younger version of myself I can feel like the original version of myself when I am with friends. And for me if I go too much time like in those lonely years, like I was mentioning, if I go through a time like that, where I'm not surrounded by friends where I don't have like, nights out or weekends away or just a coffee together, I start to get less Unless myself, I start to move away from who I truly am. It can lead to depression and people very often, it can make us feel like we're on the wrong path that can really lead to some discontent, if we don't have companionship that doesn't have all these other obligations tied to it, like our family or our career. Yeah, absolutely.
Katie Fogarty 5:18
I love how you sort of describe yourself with friendship lets you access the OG, Laura, you know, like, who you were and who you still are. But that sometimes gets sublimated by all the Yeah, I don't want to use the word demands. I mean, I guess for motherhood, we can use the word demand. But you do these other these other sort of priorities in our lives that that we're we're kind of in partnership with a spouse or romantic partner, we're in partnership with our kids is sort of a mother child relationship. And, and friends ship allows us to be ourselves. One of the things I thought was so fascinating about this book, and, and again, I want to echo what you said, Don't be scared, you don't have to come up with like 10 best friends. That's not what this book is about. But you really look at the different types of friendships that you've identified. Some of them you call the daily duty friend, that's somebody who you're, you're doing day to day life with the old friend that's pretty self explanatory, the empty chair, the new friend, the business bestie, it was really fascinating to think about my own friendships in relation to these different categories. We're going to explore a couple of them during this conversation. But I know that you also start off with sort of five friendship philosophies that allowed that sort of inform how you interact with each one of these different types of friends. Well, what are those five friendship cat philosophies? And how do they work because I thought this was really interesting.
Laura Tremaine 6:36
So I came up with these five friendship philosophies when I was trying to sort of take a look at my own friendships and why some things were working and why they weren't. I encourage everyone if you're reading this book, or even just listening, to come up with your own friendship philosophies, like these are mine, that they like inspire people, but they're not, you know, like, I'm not a researcher, like this is not prescriptive. The first one is, friendship is a to do. So for me, friendship is on my to do list, just like work tasks are on my to do list. Like if I do not make a meaningful effort at connection with someone, I will go months and not talk like easily. Number two is just go. So we should err on the side of going. And instead of not going I think the pandemic put a lot of us in this mindset of like, I'm going to not go to this or that or the self care movement, which is so beneficial. It really is. But it puts us in a mindset of I'm going to err on the side of not going to a fun thing or to support a friend or to you know, an invitation that I got, we have culturally changed to not going and I really think a friendship philosophy should be we should err on the side of going always. Number three, this one's a little controversial is like every selfie. So this is literal and also metaphorical. But like literally, we get in these weird spaces on social media where we do not want to like people selfies, we do not want to encourage them. We feel snarky, there's all these weird tangles that we have that come from online. And it really does actually seep into our real life relationships, how a person posts maybe affects how we see them in real life. I'm encouraging people to just take a week. And just like every selfie that comes through your feed, instead of having all the feelings that you have around it. And I write a lot more about that. But that's sort of the basic of it. Number four is believed the best. So it's really important to me that we believe the best of one another we start from this place. Like if we get our feelings hurt if we feel like someone has left us out or said something a little snarky, or something that we believe the best in our friends and we do this one because it it makes our relationships better to start from that place. But also because we need them to believe the best in us because we are also going to hurt someone's feelings or accidentally leave someone out or drop the ball. And so if you come from this place relationally of believing the best about one another, then you're not like defensive or making assumptions. And then number five is the is the one that people always raise their eyebrows up. Number five is your spouse is not your best friend. And I love that sleeve that there
Katie Fogarty 9:19
okay, we know good because we're going to come back to that believe me. I've got that on my list of questions. I think these are first of all, yes, everyone can have their own, you know, five philosophies around friendship but I think you offer a pretty good starting point. I really, you know, clicked with a lot of what you had to say. When I read the thing about like every selfie I immediately thought of my friend Michelle ma who is the first person to like any kind of post that I do for this podcast on Instagram. And believe me I feel like so loved and supported when she does that. So it's such a small thing you know, and the second person to do it is my husband and sometimes I joke like he and day by audio engineer are like my two male listeners and Mike would be like that was a great show. Oh, no, Mike was on vaginal estrogen. What in God's name? Did you get out of it? You know, but it does. It feels so good when people take time to just kind of like and comment and share and what you're putting forth into the world, whether it be a selfie, or even if a selfie is a metaphor for something else. So I love that. And the belief the best is something that we should use, sort of beyond friendships, we should just use that for all of our human interactions, particularly at the phase of life that we're in today. I so agree with all of this, Laura, we're heading into a quick break. But when we come back, I want to pick up the sort of five friendship philosophies and talk about what we address at the top of the show how so many women are dying to make new friends and new midlife connections, but feel that it's hard. We'll be back after this break. Laura, we're back. When we headed into the break, we talked about the sort of joys and challenges of making and nurturing new friends in midlife. And I think, you know, when we look at all the categories of friends that you outline in the book, some of them you know, with the old friend we understand on an instinctual level, right, we know what it means to have an old friend and nurture that friendship. But I hear from listeners as you hear from people who interact with you on social, making new friends in midlife can feel hard, and we do not need to spend more than five minutes online to bump up against articles about the epidemic of loneliness in America. What is your thinking on how people make and nurture new friends in midlife?
Laura Tremaine 11:24
Well, first of all, I really champion the idea of a new friend, I think that old friends get all the glory because of course they do. But new friends can be such a special part of your life because they are meeting you, wherever you are in this midlife stage. And most of us have fought really hard to become whoever we are in midlife, and they like you as that person. So letting a new friend like really be special, instead of like a drudgery or awkward or all these different ways we can think of a new friend is kind of a mindset shift that I think is important. And then also, one of the things once we get to midlife, we are feeling like we have, most of us have had really special friendship in our friendships in our past. So we have like a bestie, or we had a longtime neighbor, or we have a sister or whatever. So when we make new friends, the standard is really high, the bar is really high for this type of close friendship that we want to have with new friends. And I'm kind of asking all of us to maybe lower the bar a little bit, in a good way. Because you might not have like a soul deep connection with a new friend now or ever. And we also may like make these judgments when we when we meet people that we think oh, she she's not really my type of gal. Like this is not a person I'm going to be good friends with and so we dismiss them, when really there is a season in your life when companionship is just so much better than not companionship. So looking around around a lot about this in the book, it's part of the life Council concept, looking around at your existing landscape of work, friends, neighborhood friends, you know, fellow mom, friends, other women who play golf, or tennis or whatever our hobbies are, they might not be our deepest, you know, most fulfilling relationships of all time, but they can be fun. They can be someone to call in an emergency, they can be like, just a really important part of our life. And so, like, lower our bar for that it always has to be deep connection. I want deep connection for all of us. I do but companionship is awesome. I've made some of the best memories of my life with people that I didn't meet on a soul level with.
Katie Fogarty 13:42
Of course, I totally I think that makes so much sense. And that this sort of, you know, sometimes we perhaps we're approaching the notion of friendship like we you said like with maybe with too high a bar, like you have to be a best friend or soul sister for the relationship to be meaningful. But if we open ourselves up to recognizing that there can be different levels of friendship or different types of friendships, it feels so much more expansive.
Laura Tremaine 14:07
And it lets us it lets us think about the people in our life. It like sort of elevates everyone. I like that word expansive, but also elevates everyone. So like, instead of someone being just a work friend, like someone that you eat lunch with every day, to just change that sort of idea to be like how amazing that I have someone that I can eat lunch with every day, you know, not everybody has that. Maybe you wouldn't invite her to your birthday dinner. But like it sort of elevates all of your relationship to be like she's not just a work friend. She is my business bestie and that I think just feels better and it makes us feel like okay, I've had so many so much feedback on this book of people who started the book thinking that they didn't have very many friends are that they were kind of lonely. And then as they were reading, they were like, Oh no, I do have friends. I do have people in my life. And that feels better.
Katie Fogarty 14:56
Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly this book was so much fun for me. you to read because I said, as I said at the top of the show, like my girlfriends are just such an enormous part of my life. When I turned 50, I invited 50 Friends, to my podcast, I mean, my podcasts, my birthday party, and these were friends, I went to college with their friends I played tennis with, they were the two women that live behind me, we sort of shared a backyard. And we all had different sort of relationships to all of them. But they were all so important in my life in these different and unique ways. And if you're thinking, my backyard neighbor, it needs to sort of show up my life the way my best friend from colleges, you know, that's never going to happen. But when you open your mind to thinking like, I'm so blessed to be interacting with all these different humans who are wonderful, you can feel sort of really lit up. So yeah, I so I think that sometimes that maybe so we just talked about two ideas. Like we need to have a more expansive way of looking at friendships and relationships and how we interact with people in to, you know, sometimes we need to like lower the bar a little bit and recognize that we don't need to have a bet. You don't have to be a best friend to be a friend. What else can get in the way in midlife to making friends, friends and new connections? Do you think?
Laura Tremaine 16:08
Well, there's so many and in this moment, we're in again, post pandemic, I think there's some social awkwardness, a lot of us still have insecurities about things around friendship, we don't want to like we want to feel like Oh, I'm, I've grown out of that. I'm above that. But we do we can get our feelings hurt. If we're left out. Or, you know, we walk into a room where we don't know anyone like all of these things, then we talk ourselves out of going at all, like my friendship philosophy of just going there's all there's all these barriers to not showing up to not making the effort to make a new friend. Maybe we have gotten our heart broken in a friendship I write about that as the empty chair of life counsel, so many of us have gone through that kind of pain of a friendship ending. And so we don't want to extend ourselves out into new friendships. It's very much like our relationship like a romantic relationship patterns, where after a heartbreak, you're sort of hesitant to get back in. This happens in friendship, too.
Katie Fogarty 17:08
Yeah, that's such a great segue. So what is let's talk about the empty chair, because this was sort of an interesting chapter to me. So the, the empty chair is really like a double sided coin, right? Like, sometimes we let go of friendships that we've maybe we've outgrown, or that no longer serve us so that we move, and we just let it sort of die on the vine. And sometimes we are the one that are, you know, that's being dumped. And, and, you know, one, one aspect might be more painful than the other. But the end of any kind of relationship, you know, comes with some sort of sorrow comes with letting go, you know, walk us through your thinking about what goes on in this chapter and share the notion of the empty chair with our listeners.
Laura Tremaine 17:50
So when I started writing a book about friendship, it was actually one of the most important chapters that I knew I wanted to write was this notion of an empty chair, which is addressing Friendship Breakups, because, again, in my years of talking about this topic, online friendship, it always comes up that someone had a rift or a friendship end with like, someone they really cared about, and that it was still painful for them. I've had so many women tell me that their Friendship Breakups were as painful as their divorces. But culture does not give, like any kind of credence to that, like, if you go through a friendship breakup, people are just like, whoa, okay, like, I mean, people just sort of shrug their shoulders at it. And it is actually really a pain point for a lot of women. And I've gone through it myself and really, really struggled in the wake of a dear friendship ending. So I wanted on the life Council, as I'm talking about all these wonderful friends, we can have to acknowledge that friendships do end, and you're not the only one, you're not the only one that got dumped, or you're not the only one that had to make a painful choice. And if it took you a long time to get over it, you're not the only one there either. So I wanted to like acknowledge that as a seat on the life Council. But then the other side of that coin is that I wanted to make sure that as we are stacking our life councils are just looking around at our own lives, that we are leaving an empty chair available for someone new to come into our life. So another thing that I hear from women is that you know, friendship is too exhausting, their plate is already full, they already have their bestie they don't need any more friends. And you know, I guess if that's the decision that you're going to make fine, but I think when we stay open hearted to letting new people come into our life to fill these chairs on our life Council, we are going to live a more fulfilling and interesting relational life. And so the empty chair represents the friendships that are no longer there and add like a leave the light on for yet kind of idea that someone could come and occupy that space. It's it's both an ending and a B Getting
Katie Fogarty 20:00
it's such a great metaphor. And I love this notion of open heartedness. And having this open share. My, my daughter used to attend and then worked at a summer camp for a number of years is called Camp chimney corners. And it's that's three C's if you're paying attention, and they use that in their logo, and they always talk about the fact that the philosophy of the camp is an open circle. You know, everyone is welcome. And this sort of notion of like, looking at your friendships I think you use in the book or the symbol of a horseshoe, you know, right, where it's not a closed circle, like you there's a, there's an openness to this and, and I think in midlife, you know, we do need to remain open hearted to new friendships, we need to remain open to new experiences, in order to have this be a really rich period of life that that's what I've learned, I have met so many people in the midlife community since launching this podcast three years ago, I have moved some of these relationships from, you know, podcast bikes, or sort of midlife conferences to you know, friendships where we're getting together for lunch, or we've gone on retreats together. And it's been such an unexpected and beautiful outcome of launching a podcast. So actually, this was the question I did want to ask you. So maybe we'll sort of move into it. Now, since I brought it up. Maybe you are an expert in online community building, you know, you mentioned that you were sort of an OG mom, blogger, you've been doing it for 14 years, you've you've changed your content into podcasting. This is your second book, you've got a big Instagram following and sort of a private, I think Facebook space. You know, let's talk a little bit about creating and nurturing these sort of online friendships. Do you think different rules apply than in real life? Do you ever keep some of these relationships solely online? Or is is there an opportunity do you think to, to bring them into your sort of day to day?
Laura Tremaine 21:47
Yes, both I have done both. And they've sort of filled different needs. So years and years ago, when I had like a baby on my lap. online friendships were the best I could do in the moment, like I couldn't meet up, I couldn't travel to a conference or retreat, like I, I was friends online. And I was online all day, you know, every day it felt like and so those were those women were meeting, a connection need for me that I am so grateful for, there is nothing lame about having an online community that is really fulfilling to you, that brings you joy, that lets you geek out on, you know, whatever the thing is, it's brought you together in that online space. It can really be like a great part of your life. And so I never want to like poopoo it, I do think that sometimes those friendships are taken offline or or led to in person meetings. And that can be like a really deep connection, because you started from some kind of place, wherever you gather whatever brought you together online. And then now when it transcends that, then you sort of have both right, and I've done both, and see the value to both. Now I think it just sort of matters, like what your personality is or what your stage of life is, like I said, if you're really busy, then online is a great way to still foster connection. I don't think that that is fake or inauthentic. I, obviously I think all of us know that there is something different to an in person connection. So if it leads to that, but I always encourage women that don't feel like if all you have are online friends that that's, that means you're a bad friend, or that means you can't make friends in real life, it might just be a season. And it's a way to use the internet in a good like a good side of the internet like it is technology can provide a helpful tool in our loneliness that, you know, past generations didn't have. So let's go ahead and use that. Yeah,
Katie Fogarty 23:45
absolutely. I love that I try to have a virtual coffee at least once or twice a week with people that I just probably wouldn't be able to get to, you know, to get to spend in real life time where they're either in different cities or in different time zones. Or even if we're in the same town, you know, sometimes it's still just hard given what's going on with everyone's lives. So I I love connecting with people virtually. And I love the community that I've built around this podcast, I really feel like it's been so it's been so joyful, and it's been so unexpected and I I love what you shared on this. Let's switch gears and go back to your your five friendship philosophy number five, where you share in the book and that you just shared with our listeners that your husband is not your best friend. And this applies to you know, whatever partner that elicited or might be sort of paired up with. I would love for you to expand a little bit on this thinking.
Laura Tremaine 24:37
Well, the idea of marrying your best friend I married my best friend that is such a modern and new idea. This is not like what marriage has always traditionally been. I know why we say that it feels romantic. And it is another way for us to say how important that person is to us like that we feel deeply connected and all of that my husband is the most important Listen, in my life, he is my first call my last call, but he's my husband, he's not my best friend. So there's a lot of layers to it here. One is he has a wildly different personality than I do. He's also male. Which, which matters as part of the conversation. But I get something totally different out of conversations with my girlfriends. Like we just speak differently, we laugh differently, we connect on a totally different plane than I get with my husband. Also, I have seen people, if you put all your eggs in one basket in a relational basket, it doesn't just have to be a spouse, but I think this is the most common one. And then that relationship ends, you know, what you need to hold you up through that is your girlfriend's your friends, life can change life can be tragic, there's a lot going on there that I don't want people to put all of their, like relational capital, like all of their effort, and you know, every inside joke and all those things into one relationship. And it's not a very popular thing to say it is very popular to say you are married to your best friend. But to me, it's more honoring to be like, No, he's not my best friend. He's my husband. That is already a place of honor. Yes. You know, it's not diminishing him to say that it is just like, these are separate relationships. My mom is also not my best friend, my sister is not my best friend. They're my mom and my sister. So they're already in places of vacation there. Yeah,
Katie Fogarty 26:35
they already have, like, they're on the throne. They're on the mountaintop. These are these here that you know, the high, the important relationships your life. No, it's so interesting that so I wanted you to I know what you're thinking is I've read the book by little, I just was excited for you to share it with our listeners to. And I also think that when we think of our spouse or partner as our sort of ultimate best friend who there's a lot of pressure on our partner. Yes. You know, I mean, because this is this is, you know, my husband is my romantic partner, he is my co parent, you know, he's my co pilot in life and all that stuff that goes along with the two and if he also had to, like, talk with me about hair color, you know, and like micro needling like that, that's a lot. I'm asking a lot of him. I mean, as it is, I just shared, he listens to this podcast, he knows a lot about vaginal estrogen, you know, he is like, he is being asked too much. And so I think if we, if we make our, you know, our spouse or a partner be be all things to us. It's it, you know, it can be a lot. So that's another reason why I, I thought your thinking on this topic was so interesting. What is he? What does he say? Does he what's his take on this? Well, it's
Laura Tremaine 27:41
funny because men in general, husbands in general, have a little bit of a different take, because a lot of times men, they have put a lot of their relational capital into their wives like that is their main companion. I feel like there is a little bit of a gender difference here. Not always, but that's just a sort of stereotype where, I don't know if my husband has dear friends, he has your college friends. I don't know that he would call me his best friend just because we've talked about this so much. But I do think that I have more people in my life that I'm close to than he does. Now. He has a much smaller group of those people. But it's uh, that's okay. I mean, the other thing I say in the book and that I really stand by is that there is something a lot more freeing and joyful about going and spending time with a friend. And then coming home and you know, like you don't you don't share a bathroom with that person didn't mean like, you don't have clothes on the floor. You don't have to make that appointments or whatever. A friend can be a friend and it can really even if it's deep, it can really stay free of the other life. You know, stuff and clutter that is happening with a partner and it's really great to separate and celebrate those things.
Katie Fogarty 28:55
Yes, absolutely. Because you don't have to deal with mortgages and like who you know who's hosting Thanksgiving this year and like yeah, all of this stuff that you need to it is it is freer and more joyful even if we you know even if we rely on our friends for the you know, the support and all that you knows going through all that hard you have about you talk in your book about a battle buddy friend, like a friend that you go that you're in the trenches with, you know, when I think about battle buddy friends in my own life that are no longer part of it. It's the women that I did a playgroup with the first year of my daughter's life and I was really struggling and underwater to new mom when I so relied on those days in Central Park in the sun sitting on a blanket being with women that understood, you know, what? transpired at like four in the morning and my home the night before and it was such an important crucible of experience, but by the time our kids sort of hit one and we did all the first birthdays and everyone sort of moved apart, you know that that moment was over. So
Laura Tremaine 29:58
I write about the battle buddy I say this about all of the friends. But this really applies to the battle buddy, someone that you have gone through a battle with whether it's, you know, early childhood days like yours or a hard work situation, perhaps a shared diagnosis something really hard when you have gone through a battle with a friend, and thank goodness that you had one another because you know, no one else understood what you're going through type of relationship. But sometimes what starts to get sticky is, if the battle ends, then we keep trying to make that friend or that person fit into other parts of our life, and it doesn't always work. So one of the things that I talk about in all of these friendships is you can just let that friendship live where it is, like your business bestie, your battle buddy, they do not have to be, you know, part of your life for 20 years after the thing that brought you together is over, you can let them live where it is, that might not always be true. But it is a freedom if you need that to be true to be like, Look, this just didn't transcend that time of my life or that situation. And just be grateful for that you had each other and that you've also gone your separate ways with no hard feelings or just have let it fade out. And I think that really applies to the battle buddy, because when I've talked to women who have had battle buddy friends, most of us do. Sometimes they feel guilty if they exit the battle, and the other person is still in the battle. Like this is actually a specific type of friend and and there'll be more and more of these in midlife and beyond, right? That we feel like we aren't exactly sure how to navigate some of these friendships. And so I do want to offer mostly freedom in the book around that you can just let a friend live in its lane. And that's all.
Katie Fogarty 31:42
Yeah, the book is full of so many wonderful prompts. One of the notions that really left off the page, to me is how we approach friendships in our own lives, is something that we model and share with our children. And this was something that I actually said in a toast at my 50th birthday when my mother was there. And I said the reason why there are 50 Women on my sunny patio having lunch with me is because my mother prioritize friendships. You know, I saw in her own life, it was a model for happiness and support and joy, in solidarity and just like good stuff. And and that lesson around the vibrancy of female friendships really translated to me. And I hope that my kids, you know, are seeing that as well. But we can't always assume our kids are getting the memo because I have three kids. And I know that you can't assume anything. So I'm just wondering, you know, can you share with our listeners? What are some of the proactive ways that you've identified, that we might want to think about sharing with our own children to help them learn how to prioritize friendships as the wonderful gifts that they can be?
Laura Tremaine 32:48
Well, I have a 14 year old and a 12 year old right now. We are in the friendship staff. Yes. Now, I did not have that model that you did in my mom, my mom is most comfortable being alone. So she didn't have a rich life of female friendship that I learned from In fact, I've often wondered if that's why I've really taken on this topic is because I've had to sort of create it for myself. With my daughter. She's the one who's 14, even just last night we were sort of talking about some friendship etiquette, especially over texting. Someone had issued an invitation over text and it was like, do I reply now? Do I wait till other people reply? And we really had to talk through and it was actually a frustrating conversation, I think for both of us on like online, teenage friendship etiquette. I also tried to model like you described you had friendship, prioritization for her. So like, if I am going on a on a friend retreat weekend, whatever it means I miss her volleyball game. I will explain to her like, yeah, that's a choice I made. You know, I do this once a year with my friends. I love it. It matters to me. Everything else is, you know, second tier that weekend. And I, I have conversations constantly and sort of point out to her. Why this is important. And we talked about it all the time. And you know, 14 were right for friendship conversation.
Katie Fogarty 34:21
Absolutely. I remember my daughter is now 23. And I remember the teen years it's really hard. But I love that you that you flag for her that it's important that you share that sort of verbally because it's you know, it gives her permission in her future life. To do the same to say that I really you know, friendships are something that I cherish cherish and we need to make time for things that are important to us so that she can be you know, her OG self just like you need to return to being OG Laura and I definitely need to be Katie, and not mom, you know, a lot of times so yeah, I think I think anyone listening to this show can connect with that, Laura, we're new During the end of our time together, but before we move into the speed round, I want to ask you a question that I ask a lot of guests, but not all, you know, do you think you could have written this undertaking this project? When you were younger? Could you have written live counsel when you're older? And when you're younger, rather? And what role of any did aging play your ability to step back and sort of assess and codify your thinking on friendship?
Laura Tremaine 35:25
I mean, I think I could have written about the concept when I was younger, but I couldn't have filled it out in the way that I can having written it in my 40s. So you know, I went through those lonely years, I've always had a full slate of friends, I grew up in a really small town, which affected the way that I thought about friendship. We didn't even talk about that. But that's true. I did like Sorority Life and summer camp life. And I had these things in my life that, that let me have a lot of different types of women around me girls or women around me, so that when I hit those lonely years, it was really a rude awakening. So I think I could have written about the life council as a concept, which is also why I, I think this book is great for even 20 Somethings or as a gift for younger people as a way to think about, like the big picture of their friendships in their life. But I'll tell you the hugest like sort of thing that makes a difference in me having written this book in my 40s, versus in my 20s, or 30s, is that I have definitely had more ups and downs in my relationships, like, obviously, just the experience of time, means that like, I've gone through Friendship Breakups, I've gone through more friends fading away, I've gone through more simply seasons of life, to sort of understand that it's healthy for, for friendships, to change, or for friends to come and go. And I feel like more confident in what I'm saying about relationships in my 40s than I ever have. And I think that in my 50s, of course, I will feel even more experienced. I mean, that's the hope, right? I, I was saying the other day to someone, my first book, which is called Share step, I'll go first, and it's quite a different book. But I definitely am glad I didn't write that book, my first book 10 years ago, because I would have told I tell a lot of my life stories in that book, I would have told those life stories so differently, when I was younger, I would have told them more me centered, I would have told without 10 years of therapy, I really would have told those stories differently. And I'm glad that I waited to you know, share some of the parts of my life, I just have a different perspective.
Katie Fogarty 37:40
Yeah, absolutely. That's that's just the theme of the show that you know, we get to a certain age and we do have more perspective and wisdom, and just sort of a better you know, understanding of ourselves and what makes us happy, what makes us tick and, and we learn that through having gone, you know, haven't gone through things and you open your book with a friendship reckoning that made you sit down and write this book and sort of evaluate it and that's, that's sort of the beauty of midlife, like we've gone through hard things we survived them and we can kind of alchemize them into something more beautiful and more meaningful and your book is one of them I couldn't so recommend the life counsel 10 friends every woman needs if you love and treasure friendships or if you wish you had more of them in your life. So let's move on to our speed round this is the last thing we do before we close and it's just you know one to two word answers are yes or no are you ready? Let's get ready. Okay, writing the life counsel was
Laura Tremaine 38:39
fun. Can I should i say more? Can I say if you will? Yes
Katie Fogarty 38:42
Go go.
Laura Tremaine 38:44
It felt so good to honor these women in my life actually and I did not anticipate that piece of it but it is really fun to honor the people in your life in in book form.
Katie Fogarty 38:54
It was so beautiful I so enjoyed this book. Okay, we talked about the five friendship philosophies but what's your number one friendship value if you had to choose
Laura Tremaine 39:05
it would be believed the best I think we have to start from there instead of starting from from any other place of assuming the worst
Katie Fogarty 39:13
Nice try this easy idea to nurture friendships without feeling clingy
Laura Tremaine 39:22
text on a schedule
Katie Fogarty 39:26
I am a slave to my calendar so that I that clicks that tracks with me. Okay,
Laura Tremaine 39:31
I have a sorry I know this is speed round but I actually have a reminder on my phone that comes up that's like check in with a friend because that's part of my friendship philosophy is if I do not make it a to do like any other task in my life, I won't I won't be connected I'll I'll flake out
Katie Fogarty 39:49
what gets calendar it gets done. I totally believe that. Okay, you say relationships are never perfect because people are flawed. Totally facts. What is a trait you are working on to him? prove your own friendships.
Laura Tremaine 40:03
Well, I just said it. What I'm trying to fix about it is that I, I can be out of sight out of mind. Like I can drop the ball very easily and go a long time and not check in on someone. Another story that I tell in the book is that I had a dear friend whose whose parent was ill. And I just did not check on her for months. And she called me out on it. And I was like, You're right. I mean, it's one of the it was one of the catalysts for writing this book, because I was like, You're right. I have not I need to change the way I do. Friendship. I'm just ruining your speed round by.
Katie Fogarty 40:39
That's okay. That's okay. I love it. I love hearing all this stuff. That's okay. All right. Let's see what lets me think of one more. Okay, life counsel is your second book. But if you were to write a third, it would be on this topic. This one might be hard.
Laura Tremaine 40:54
No, this this one would not be hard. Well, I don't, this isn't going to actually be my, my, my third book if there is one. But I could write a full book on all of the crazy messages that I get from people online about their stuff. That's just the point of work. Not the point. But the byproduct of working online is that you get a lot of people's and when my message, my main message to everyone is to share your stuff. People share their stuff to me, oh my God, that's hilarious. And we need people to share their stuff to their own people.
Katie Fogarty 41:32
That's hysterical. Oh my gosh, well, that book is gonna write itself. You're just gonna like, cut and paste, cut and paste all the text messages in? Oh my gosh, that's funny. All right, how about this one Writing a book is solitary work. This hacker activity keeps me connected and seen when I'm in the thick of a writing project.
Laura Tremaine 41:50
Okay, this is actually about writing sort of applies to everyone. But this really works for me, I put my phone on time lapse. And I this is very weird, but roll with me and I video myself writing. But on time lapse. I don't know that I was just gonna think that this makes me feel connected as you ask. But it makes me feel productive. First of all, when your phone is on time lapse, it can't do anything else. It can't receive text. It's almost like being in airplane mode.
Katie Fogarty 42:18
Oh my gosh, that's so funny. And then you're you then you'd like a doc. Like you're like this book took me like two weeks to write. But it looked like it only took two minutes.
Laura Tremaine 42:26
I know. I mean, I will go back and watch it. It makes me feel like oh, look at all that writing I'm doing and look
Katie Fogarty 42:30
at how productive I am. That's hysterical.
Laura Tremaine 42:33
It is a very weird hack to feel accomplished. And also to take your main distraction, which is our phone to take it sort of off the table because you can't touch it. Because it messes up the time lapse. So you couldn't even like go check a text or whatever
Katie Fogarty 42:48
I may need to time lapse my next podcast. We'll see. We'll see how long it goes. All right here. Here's one that maybe is easy. Finally, your one word answer to complete this sentence as I age I feel
Laura Tremaine 43:02
confidence.
Katie Fogarty 43:03
I love it. I do too. That's a great that's a great word. And a great note to end on. Laura, thank you so much. This has been fun. I follow your work on Instagram. One of the best things about having a podcast is to you know to spend time in conversation with people whose work you admire. This has been a total treat. I so enjoyed the life council 10 friends every woman needs How can our listeners find you on Instagram find your work find your books.
Laura Tremaine 43:28
Well thank you for your kind words. My favorite place online is on Instagram. I'm at Laura dot trumaine there. But otherwise, if you're looking for my show 10 things to tell you all of my books all of my online community you can find all of that at Laura tremaine.com
Katie Fogarty 43:42
Phenomenal put that all into the show notes. This wraps a certain age a show for women who are aging without apology. Before I say goodbye a quick favor. I would love it. If you could take five minutes to write an apple podcast review. Did you learn something on today's show you plan to incorporate into your own life? Do you feel more connected to a tribe of amazing midlife women? If so, please take five minutes to rate or review the show over on Apple podcasts. The reviews really help the show grow. Special thanks to Michael Mann see me who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time until then, age boldly beauties.