The Key to Building Lasting Relationships

The top two vote getters were relationships and friendships when I asked what people wanted me to write about in the future. While I am happy to go down the rabbit hole of my exes and friendships for you, there is a key cross over connection. The only way to have a good friend is to be one. The only way to have a good relationship is to be a good partner. The formula for both is very simple: you show up for the people you love.

You show up when it's inconvenient. You celebrate the other person's achievements because what he/she/they accomplish should cause you to feel joy, not jealousy. You call and text when things are going great. You also call and text when you know it's going to be a hard conversation. You reach out even if it has been awhile, and it makes you feel mildly awkward to do so. You make plans and you follow through with them, even if you're like me and hate leaving my house once I'm done for the day. You stay on the phone when there is crying, venting, and laughing. You call when you're tired and busy but know the other person needs you. You remember the good dates (anniversaries, birthdays), and you remember the hard dates (an anniversary of a loss). You use valuable weekend time to visit. And if you're over 30, let me just say that all weekend time is valuable. You don't give friends or your partner ultimatums to prove they love you. You forgive the non important stuff and don't keep a tally of who did what for whom or who spent what on whom. You trust that your people love you even when they don't say it because all actions speak louder than words. Then, you keep repeating these steps.

You can not force a friendship or relationship to be equal shares of work all of the time. Some days, you will do more of the heavy lifting, and some days, your partner/friend will do more of the heavy lifting. It won't feel heavy because you love the other person. I would say that the three friends I'm closest to I've known for 15-20 years at this point. Likewise, my oldest friendships that started when I was five involve phone calls and Zoom Meets. We all grow up, but we don't all grow entirely apart from each other or our past. All friendships/relationships are one big trust fall, and I'm lucky that many people have caught me continuously over the years. I have caught people over the years because I can't stress enough that if you want a good friend, you have to be a good friend.

Have all my friendships/relationships ended well? To quote an Ingrid Michaelson song, "Oh, hell no." I am fully willing to walk through Kelly's Inferno of Relationships Past because most of the relationships that ended terribly ended well over a decade ago, and it's not painful to talk about anymore because I'm happy. I remember someone asking Taylor Swift if she was emotional rerecording Red, and the answer was a resounding no and that she was happily sipping her drink of choice while visiting scars that have long since healed. I feel incredibly similar to her on this subject matter. The initials at the top are relationships where I learned lessons about who I am. Before I started writing this post, I looked back at some old conversations with a couple very toxic people to find that all I felt was relief when rereading them. No anger. No sadness. No troubling feelings. I just felt peace.

And peace is a pretty great feeling.