I was dumped when I was halfway to turning 23. It was an impossible relationship of high highs and low lows. When we broke up though, in a way, I was relieved. I left the dive bar after our conversation and with similar impossibility somehow knew what was happening was exactly what needed to happen. I had been released to the universe. When my therapist asks me about what I would tell my younger self when I inevitably bump back into my old feelings or stories from the two years I dated my ex I have one answer I give. I wish I knew that giving up the high highs of romantic love let all other love even out.
I don’t mean this as a scapegoat for my own shortcomings, but I think sometimes we’re set up to fail in early adulthood as we begin to nurture mature friendships. It seems rare that we see an origin story of friendship rather than one of groups already with a deep-rooted bond. I recall when I first moved to New York having almost no friends by the end of my sophomore year of college, that I didn’t know how to make friends at the age I was at. Then by the time I felt I had any we were transitioning into our 20’s. We were all a little afraid of our lives unfolding, feeling like we weren’t adults, but finding at times we had to be.
Before my break up I was an alright friend, but there was a capacity that I couldn’t extend myself beyond. Like many people who are coming into adulthood, I was incredibly preoccupied with being loved. Romantic love was the shimmery version of all other love you could have. It made me absent. I could be a good friend as I said, but there was always this feeling of wanting to be somewhere else. I didn’t always want to not be with my friends, but I wanted to be older, smarter, in a life that already unfolded where I had a boyfriend waiting for my return, who wanted to see me. Wanting to be somewhere else made it difficult to appreciate being right here.
When I was broken up with though, as I said, everything effectively evened out. I remember sitting outside my school after class with my friend Kelly and telling her how much I liked this new focus. I felt for once I could enjoy being exactly where I was. She said to me, she noticed. When we used to go out she remembered, though it didn’t hurt her feelings, there was always a goal of getting to meet up with the man I was seeing. I felt instantly my focus shift inward.
Despite Kelly saying her feelings hadn’t been hurt I felt irresponsible, foolish, and even stupid. Had everyone known how rich it felt in the present? Was I the last 22 year old to discover how fulfilling it was to fall in love with your friends? To fall in love the way you once reserved for romance? The present moment I learned was irreplaceable. That's what I mean when I say I was an alright friend. I mean I think sometimes I retreated to a phantom life in times when I should have been focused on my real one.
I have a list of 11 moments that occurred post break up (PB), which mirror the feeling of leaving the bar. Moments, where I’m clearly falling in love, where watching your friends be your friends is profoundly moving. Moments I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.
I don’t know if there is a concrete way for me to say this is how you’re a good friend this is how you’re a bad friend. At times we do long for romance, we want to be swept off our feet, we do dream of a life where we have someone excited to see us when we get home. Like anything, it’s not an either or. I'm aware that my priorities aren’t perfect, I might do things that hurt me even though I know that they will and I may hurt others even if it wasn’t my intention to. Yet I think our preoccupation with wanting to know how it will work out, wanting another life, believing that there is a hierarchy for forms of love leaves us at a disadvantage to enjoying in fullness what we already have.
The shift that occurred outside my school I think is how we are a better anything: friend, cousin, sister, girlfriend. As I create mature friendships, I feel the growing desire to look inwards outweighing the desire to look elsewhere. The best version of ourselves lies in a place that sees love and still asks how we can better serve those to who it belongs. How can I be better for you?
I think it’s interesting when I look at these 11 moments, a lot of being a good friend has been watching my friends be good to me. I wanted to return the favor, I wanted to manifest my tenderness for them in some way. I feel ineffable gratitude to them, for which I could not be half the friend I am now if it weren’t for their acceptance of me imperfectly, if not for the love they outpoured to me before my break up and especially after.
I think about my therapist’s question now, she asks me a lot, what would I want to know? There’s another answer that might have solved all of this. I wish I knew when I was 22 or 21 even 20 or forever ago to the point of my creation that I was a real person in this world. I exist as a friend, neighbor, daughter, sister, and of course as myself. It seems silly, doesn’t it? But I used to be so lonely. I remember turning 21 years old. As I was leaving the city on the train for the summer I looked out the window and saw Manhattan. I knew that it didn’t matter that I was leaving. The city wouldn’t notice. My feelings about my own existence personified, there was clearly a distance between me and the world. It seemed impossible anyone could be this alone. I felt like I had yet to reach this imaginary threshold where people missed me, where people could even see me in their field of vision.
As I look at this list I’m sad in a way. I know if I had changed a single thing I’d have known what I’ve seen over and over now. But it all circles back to gratitude. My friends make me see how impossible it is to leave without them noticing. Even more impossible it would be that upon my return, when we find ourselves together, there wouldn’t be that first moment when we sigh and say it’s so nice to see you.
How to Wait Well by James Farman
way way way back when Tumblr was an entire entity I hardly remember, I discovered Keaton Henson. There’s a lot of works out there about friendship but this always filled me in a different way, a different joy, a certain calmness. I don’t know anything really about Henson besides the works that came to me at 17. I was severely depressed and repainting my room so I could make it like an apartment. I wanted it to be what I imagined New York to be like as I knew that was where I was going to end up. I can’t explain it, I was almost ignorant of the fact I could end up anywhere else, or that there could possibly be a desire to deter me towards another city. Trying to compile my newsletter I thought of this and it fits imperfectly into it and into my life in a brand new way. Pause and listen. This newsletter isn’t going anywhere.
I posted a call for questions on Instagram to which I will answer some here. I have always really longed to be an advice columnist (not to sound pretentious). Therefore questions are always welcome on whichever platform you can reach me!
Q: Tips for starting your own writing blog and being less scared?
A: In the age of social media I think we sometimes perceive that we are more transparent than we really are. I think the imposter syndrome is almost heightened in the sense that you feel like you can’t do something because right out in the open everyone knows you only have this many followers etc etc. Blogs aren't like that. The only person who will see the numbers is you! I think this is the best time to fake it until you make it, because from what I hear we never will find a moment in this life where we will feel qualified enough to write. I think a lot about the awful books I’ve read. I think about the people out there with half the skill, doing what I want to do, with the confidence of someone with twice the talent. You are infinitely more qualified than you think. If you share your work now or later you will probably look back and think of things you’d like to change, things you’d do differently. So many poems I would archive, newsletters even, I would change if I could. But that’s the life we live as writers. The only person who gets a say on if you’re the writer you dreamed about being is you. Step into the role, move around a little, you will find you fit there better than you anticipated.
Q: How do you combat feeling lonely in such a big city?
A: Walking. Counterproductive it may sound, but I combat loneliness by putting myself somewhere to be alone rather than letting loneliness creep in on me. It takes practice no doubt and you will sometimes find it didn’t make you feel any better, but it’s worth letting loneliness be a place out of doors rather than a curtain in intimate spaces. It's worth distracting yourself, looking at buildings, putting on music, taking a shower, things that let you look around outside your own head. Once the loneliness passes pick a day and practice being alone without the already alienating feeling of being lonely. Take a day where you feel fine and get lunch by yourself. It's an important skill, doing things alone, without feeling immense anxiety or dread. The best thing I ever did in high school was going to the movies alone. I didn't feel alone while the characters were there and it was too dark for anyone to know I was by myself. I used to think everyone noticed my isolation. Not the case, actually, almost no one is looking.
Q:Will I post more tik toks on instagram?
A: Yes! I wasn’t aware that people enjoyed it. But even if it’s just for you I shall!
As I said, I was dumped. This is me at 22 standing in the stairwell of a party the night after the event. I was significantly more sad than the moment I left the bar, but despite the face my sister Ava (@adventureava) captured, I was doing pretty good all things considered. I love this photo regardless of the pain and hope it becomes legendary in the way those photos of Joan Didion in front of the car for vogue is legendary to me. May the scowl of rejection be the only sour thing of friendships made strong.
(also this has a filter. I know enough photographers to know to say this and to ask permission before I do it.)
As always you can find a mood board for this February + Friendship here
If you’re a regular here you might have noticed some things missing! My poetry purgatory and behind the curtain segments eluded us this week. For one thing, I am to remind you that I began this newsletter and reserved the right to change. And change I do! Not every newsletter is exactly the same, but there is a particular reason I am addressing this. I didn’t include this month my planning page because I didn’t plan anything. I actually had an intense feeling of stage fright which made any semblance of a plan impossible. I wrote approximately, two thousand, maybe million, column drafts about friendship. All the while I watched my tik tok followers increase by 3,000 in one day and my email ping with each new subscriber. I’m not complaining, but it’s easier to adjust to smaller increments of people because it doesn’t feel like much is changing. I think despite it all I was able to put together a fantastic quilt of my being, a most authentic mirror. I hope you found something wonderful here too and I do hope you stick around as I adjust to this new feeling of having you.
That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save +share your favorite parts and tag @chloeinletters
My Instagram is @chloeinletters where the DMs are checked, cared, and loved for.
My Goodreads where I sometimes write reviews but keep updated is right here where more of my library is contained as far as books go.
My website is where you can check out my portfolio and contact me
My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!
Here’s to another month, getting dumped, being a good friend, and Starbucks Fridays.
Love always
Chloé
Your newsletter is great. I had the sense that I was relaxing in some comfortable place and having a conversation with an old friend. There was intimacy without tension, a sense of familiarity that is possible with old friends who don’t care about each other’s imperfections.