Episode 19: Friendship

00:52

Welcome to the 19th episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. And I have been recording these episodes quite a bit, one after the other until I got to Episode 18 last week. And I actually ended that somewhere around August and it is now October and by the time this airs, it’ll likely be December. That said, I took a little break because I wasn’t really sure about where I wanted to go with everything. And I felt like I had enough in the queue. I also decided that maybe I would just start talking in this episode as opposed to what I’ve been doing, which is actually scripting and recording, and then editing. And when I say editing in the earlier episodes, I think it was pretty choppy. And that’s okay, because I’m learning. So today, and I’ve been thinking about what episode I was going to do next after the 18th. And I I actually thought that rhythm that I had would continue, but nevertheless, it did not. And I felt a little tired of scripting. A lot of these episodes are scripted. And there’s no problem with scripting, I just don’t know if maybe it wouldn’t be better if maybe I just started talking and not worry so much about whether or not there was this ultimate flow to it. So in this week’s episode, I am going to talk about friendship. And I want to do it completely off the cuff. If this episode airs, I guess I liked how it sounded.

02:31

So in talking about friendship, it’s not easy, because I just saw a great post by somebody on clubhouse on Instagram. And she was quoting somebody else. And this person she was quoting was not the originator of this quote, but it doesn’t matter who originated originated it because it’s actually a good quote. And it goes a little like this. When I’ve ever heard it, it said they the person said people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. But the person who actually quoted it in in today, used the word friendship rather than people, friends, friends come into your life for a season a reason or a lifetime. And you can spin those anywhere you want, you know, a season a reason, a lifetime, a reason a season or a lifetime, it doesn’t matter. I think you all get the gist of it. So when people come in and out of your life, what does that look like for you? And what does it mean for you? And for me, friends have come and gone. And I think I’ve brought that up in other episodes in the past, you know, and I am really guarded about myself and my boundaries and my friendships. I have actually ended friendships, to protect the people from not having to deal with all of my chaos. They may not understand that, and I was making a decision for them. And that probably isn’t fair. But I didn’t feel like catching up or being a friend to them when it wasn’t balanced. Meaning they might have been a better friend to me than I was to them. And that’s not healthy either.

04:28

So when I think about friendship, I think about what does it mean? Well, for some people it you know, it’s about calling somebody on the phone and catching up on the day. And when you’re a mother, a young mother, you know you might be friends with the people that maybe your kids go to school with and you have playdates with and that’s all well and good. And I think to myself, what would these people be my friends if I didn’t have some commonality and many of the friends that I made who did go to the preschool when my children were little are not my friends today. They may be somebody that come in and out of my life. And they might say, how are you? And I would say, how are you and we would just simply catch up. Not friends that I can say that I would want to spend a lot of time with. So as a result of many friendships that I had gone through in my lifetime, they either didn’t work out, or I wasn’t a good friend, or I wasn’t working out. And, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t really go anywhere. And it became much more challenging to be a good friend, and to have a good friend, when I no longer had a husband. And when I was alone, I didn’t have this network of girlfriends that all got divorced. I got married really young, so many of my friends who may have been friendly with me were married by the time I was getting a divorce, and some of them are still married, and some of them are not. It doesn’t help when you don’t have that common ground anymore. And so you believe that as you go through life, you’re going to make new friends, and you can count on people. And here’s what I don’t want it to sound bad. But for me, I don’t want to count on anyone. And that is a result of feeling a little let down by some of the friends that I’ve had in my life. And let me be clear, I’ve let them down too so this is not one or two sided. I mean, it’s two sided, I guess. But if they’ve let me down, I am quite certain that I have let them down too. And that’s okay. Friendship at, you know, 58 years old is not going to come easily for somebody well into a pandemic and coming out of it. And where do you go? And how do you meet people? It’s hard enough to meet a partner or be in a relationship, let alone meet somebody as a friendship goes. So you know, you, you do things like, get on Clubhouse, and you get to know people that way. And you hope that the people that you’re encountering are good people, and that they genuinely give a hoot about your life, and they want to be there for you. And some do, but many don’t. And the rare few will be there and really care and share things about you that you want to have public and keep things private, when you want that to be private too. And it’s hard, because I’m not the most open person when it comes to trust. You know, you’d think that I think that this podcast would have been this, you know, not only is it a journey of self discovery, but it would be one of yeah, here’s my life, take it for what it is. And aren’t I great, but it’s it’s not. A lot of it is hard and not the technical part, the sharing part. And I shared a lot of very private things that I can’t even believe for somebody that’s as guarded as I am, I went down that road and friendship is a challenge for me. And I want to be open about that. Because I am finding it difficult to you know, I don’t I don’t call people. I don’t pick up a phone and I don’t call people I don’t text people. And people have said how come you don’t call me and how come you don’t text me and I just don’t. And, you know, I guess if I’m universally like that, then maybe I’m protecting myself from being let down.

08:52

You know, growing up friends, before I let them down. I truly believed you know, they weren’t always great. You know, they didn’t they some friends have been very just betrayed. Trust betrayed. They’ve said things they shouldn’t have said to other people. And, you know, I don’t know whether I had said to myself, well, I guess I deserve that. And yeah, you know what? I didn’t, I didn’t deserve it. And it just showed me that that wasn’t a good friend. And so when I heard that quote, and I just heard this quote about, I don’t know 10 minutes ago and I liked the quote. Friends come into your life for a reason or season or a lifetime and I don’t have lifetime friends. I do have season friends and I do have the reason friends and you know, you think maybe that’s bad, but maybe it’s not bad. And maybe you all have that too and there is something interesting about what is it mean there’s a level of balance to that. And when you accept that that’s an okay thing. Whether it’s friends, or people in general; season, reason, lifetime, you get this, you get this acceptance for whatever that might be. And, you know, I remember oftentimes talking to my sister about friends friendship, especially after divorce. And, you know, she would say things like, well, you should go out with your girlfriends and, you know, go out for drinks. And I just didn’t do that. And when I had an opportunity to do that in 2000, and I guess it was 2017, because I had left a relationship, and I was really on my own, and I was feeling really good. And I had lost 60 pounds, and I was working out again, and I was really together. I was drinking, but I wasn’t, I didn’t think it was problematic. And I just couldn’t feel comfortable in the experience of going out to have sushi or going out for, you know, a pasta dinner and having Girl Talk, and it just didn’t suit me well. And then, as I look back on all of it, despite them being lovely women, they really didn’t care about me. And I didn’t really care about them, they were just and I don’t mean to sound callous, when I sayt that, they just weren’t, you know, my kind of a friend, and you know, some people that I really care about them, they don’t live in the state, I would have to get on an airplane to go see them. And that becomes a problem too. So they become friends that you might talk to on the phone, and maybe you’ll have a zoom call with them. Or maybe you won’t, I don’t know. But that that’s kind of a tough friendship, too. You know, I, I have one good friend out of this country, who, you know, I she’s just got a lot going on, she’s still got young children, and she’s, you know, in a relationship, and she’s moved, and it’s hard, it’s hard to be able to connect and to speak with her. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about her or I don’t care about other people that I have met even through clubhouse. I do, however, feel as if friendship is going to be much harder as I get older. It’s going to take some serious, either planning or some kind of an extravagant decision on my part, to go out and do something completely uncharacteristic of me. And I don’t know what that looks like or what that is. But I do know that for some reason, now, I feel very comfortable with how I am living my life and who I am, as a person. I feel pretty genuine in the decisions that I’m making, I feel really genuine in what I’m sharing. You know, I have talked about this, and I’ve talked a lot about balance in the past. And I don’t think that it gets any better than when you are at your best. And when you’re at your best, you become really great for other people, here is a problem. What about boundaries, and I’m going to talk about boundaries and future episodes, because it seems to be something that is coming up an awful lot in conversation. You know, if a friend calls you and they need your help with something, you can choose to help them or you can choose to say, hey, listen, I’ve got a lot going on, I really can’t help you right now. I can be a good sounding board for you and be a good ear for you. Or you can say, look, I just can’t do any of those things, does it make you a bad friend? And I’m not sure that it makes you a bad friend. If you’re putting your boundaries and defining your boundaries, you know, boundaries do not mean in my world, they don’t mean putting your hand up in front of somebody’s face and saying, you know, Hey, get away from me. Or to even have negative connotation around boundaries. You know, sometimes a boundary is just saying, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I know that you’re suffering right now, but I’ve got my own stuff, and I’ve got to deal with my own stuff. So what do you do then? Does that make you a crappy friend? That’s a question I would ask anybody. What do you think, is the worst thing I can hear my fans kicking up on my computer. What do you think, is the worst thing you’re a bad friend or do you just not have the bandwidth for somebody else’s stuff. And especially somebody who isn’t a superior friend, they may be a friendly acquaintance, you can be a good listener, you can be, you know, sometimes I’ve given money to people that I shouldn’t have given money to. And I’ve been a very good friend to some people, and some people have honored that and paid me back and some people haven’t. And that’s hard to. So when you have boundaries, boundaries are there to protect you. Because sometimes, if I cross a boundary of my own, then I have compromised, what is good and healthy for me. And there is nothing wrong with doing that, that does not make you a bad friend. So what I can say is to find balance in friendship, is to understand and define your boundaries and know what is a part of give and take and push and pulll, and you know that quote, even though the person who quoted it wasn’t the original person doesn’t matter. friends do come into your life for a season or reason or a lifetime. I even remember Jay Shetty, he talked about that. But instead of using friends, he said, people. I think I even heard that well before Jay Shetty. And then I went down this rabbit hole of trying to find who was the original quote for that, for that season, reason lifetime. And I think I stumbled upon it. And I can’t remember who it was. But I do want to say, to whomever is listening, this particular episode was completely off the cuff. Somebody suggested to me just start talking. And in my intro, I say scripted, unscripted. And most of them have been scripted, and they are scripted to provide some context. And so they don’t get overly boring This completely, this complete episode is not even remotely scripted. So I am really interested to see if it airs, and I don’t overly edit, even though editing is actually my favorite part. What other people will think about it, I would really like it if somebody would say, either on Instagram or in the comments, or even on Facebook or wherever, just send me an email.

17:25

I would be very interested to know if this was good or bad or you know, I don’t know. So when you think about your friendships, I hope that you think about them fondly. And I hope that you think about them in a place of balance. Because sometimes in friendships, we give too much. And we don’t get back. And sometimes in friendships we take too much. You know? And I don’t know, I don’t know what the answer is. But I do know that one answer is to find balance. And maybe I’m just not in a place where I want to open myself up for being vulnerable and being hurt by my friends and the people that know me and when they get a piece of me, they know what’s happening for me. I know that they do. And if you’re my friend, you know that I value that friendship. And I hope that you all have friendships that you value that you know that when you say I love you to a friend, you’re not just saying the words I love you. But you’ve in you genuinely care about that person, you genuinely love them. Don’t throw those words around lightly, because it’s not very nice. And you know, some people may feel differently between one kind of a friendship versus another.

19:05

So that’s all I’ve got today. And I hope this episode airs and I hope that you enjoyed listening. And if you found value in this episode, feel free to send me a message on Instagram you can follow me on Instagram I have two handles one is Mallory underscore Durrick and the other is don’t lose your balance m as in Mary S as in Sam D as in David Mallory, M S, D. and or excuse me, Don’t lose your balance m s d and then don’t lose your balance dot com and don’t lose your balances on Facebook. So I hope you have a great day and that you enjoy and cherish your friendships and I hope if this is airing that you’re enjoying your holiday season, stay healthy, stay well and embrace your friends, grab them and hang on to the good ones. I’ll see you next time

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.