← Brutally Anna
Brutally Anna
Solo Episode: Embracing life's dualities and what you don't know about friendships
00:45:07
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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Anna Chi
This week's solo episode of Brutally. Anna I'm your host, Anna Chi. As always, I hope this episode finds you doing well. But if it doesn't, I hope it finds you trying to be a little bit better. Boy, did we have a week over here. If you've been following along on Instagram, a bitty went to Fashion Week and it was a lot of fun. And I wish I could say that that was the most noteworthy part of the last week since I last checked in with you guys, but it unfortunately isn't. And I say unfortunately because I'm gonna try and figure out how to talk about this without actually talking about it. We are going through some things in this household, not me and Dave. This is not a veiled way of saying, hey, we're going through mental problems. No, we're great. Life, however, just throws you curve balls sometimes. And so, honestly, for those of you who struggle with anxiety about big picture problems and you know, you stay up late at night thinking about all this shit that could happen to you, I am just here to say that the scariest stuff that will happen to you is not anything that you can predict. It's the stuff that blindsides you at 3pm on a Tuesday when you're eating a snack at work. You know, you're chomping down on your dried mango or whatever the hell you picked up downstairs that was overpriced and a sweet treat, but not a guilty sweet treat. Because hey, at least dried mango is still a fruit, right? If you can't tell, I just ate dried mango. It was so good. I'M not sure if it's any better for me than eating that tub of ice cream in the fridge, but we're all trying our best here. So, yeah, we got some news and it wasn't great and now we have to deal with it. And that's about all I can tell you right now. And I know that's really frustrating, but trust me, you do not want to switch places with me. And I am telling you this mostly because I just have to say that no matter how perfect my life may seem, you know, I posted that carousel the other day of me at Fashion Week and that gorgeous Bronx and Banco dress with all the feathers and getting done up. No matter how great my life is, and it really is very great. We all struggle. And one day I hope I can tell you the story that I've just had to live the last week. But for now, I'm gonna switch gears a little bit and talk about some happier things that I did over the last week that don't include this terrible news that we received. And I'm sorry if I feel a little bit flippant in this very veiled intro to this podcast, but humor is my way of dealing with shit and sarcasm. And I think the only way I'm staying sane right now is to sort of laugh at the absurdity of my life. And it's helping, Honestly, it is that and a very robust security system and a panic button, which is all I'm gonna say, truly. Now I'm done. Okay, moving on to something happier. I discovered this weekend that I can replace a light fixture if any of you are handy. You'll have to excuse my noviceness here, but we have so many ugly ass boob lights, contractor grade, builder grade lights, whatever you want to call them. And some of them actually aren't even maybe builder grade lights. Some of them actually look expensive, but they ugly. Oh my God. It's not just like one or two lights either. It's like the whole damn house. Like every single light is hideous. And so I was looking at all these lights and then I'm running the tab of what my electrician is per hour to then replace all these lights. And I'm like just getting stressed out thinking about how much it's going to cost to pay him. And you know, when you first buy a house, it's a massive purchase. You're just hemorrhaging money because there's a lot of things that need to get fixed that are critical to the functioning of the house and your health and well being and so lighting is not one of those things. But lighting makes me happy. And happy people just don't kill other people. Joking. I would have never killed anybody over these lights or anything. But what I'm saying is that I really wanted these lights changed out, but I didn't want to pay for them. And there was a part of me that just thought, there are a lot of people that do their own light fixtures. They maybe don't do their own electrical work, but there are a lot of, you know, dads. My dad, my dad has always changed out his own light fixtures for our family. And so I was like, you know what, I'm going to turn to the Great University of YouTube and I'm going to see how people do it. And I watched a couple videos and I was like, I think I can do it. So I started off with these two flush mount lights in my closet. And it took a while and it was kind of a pain, but I did it and I did it safely, guys, okay? Electrical work is no joke. And I knew if I was even going to attempt to do this, I had to feel a hundred percent secure that I wasn't going to kill myself while doing it. But if you watch other people do it first and then you dare to try, sometimes you end up just learning how to replace your own light fixtures. And so I did the two in my closet, then I did the big ass chandelier above our breakfast table, and then I did this hanging chandelier in one of the guest rooms downstairs. And I'm actually just so proud of myself. Like, maybe not the proudest thing I've ever done in my life, but one of it's up there. You know, it's up there because I'm 34 year old, 5 foot 2, beauty influencer who talks about dating and relationships and female empowerment on the Internet. Okay? Nobody expects me to do my own electrical work, nobody expects me to replace my own lights. And I kind of didn't even really expect myself to do it. But where there's a will, there's a way, right? And my point in telling you this story is that I am now so comfortable replacing all of the lights in our house that I'm just gonna do all of them now. Because I thought, you know, when I first started off in my closet, I was like, well, the worst thing that could happen is it doesn't work out. And I just have to call my electrician and he'll come pick up where I left off. But it actually wasn't that difficult. And the more I did it, the easier it got, which is how all things kind of work in life. You just have to do it. I do have to say, though, I have a newfound respect for electricians who just show up not knowing at all what light fixture the homeowner purchased at all. Because there was one light fixture that I tried to put up in our mudroom and it was so poorly designed, I actually thought the designers of this flush mount light were punking me. I was like, this is a joke, right? Like, you don't actually want anybody to install this. And it was so heavy. And I finally just said, fuck it, I'm returning this thing. It's pretty, but you ain't that pretty, girl. All right? I was like, I will find something lighter and designed in a way that makes it just so much easier. Because, you know, Dave was like, well, why don't you just call your electrician to install just this one and you can do the rest? And I'm thinking in my head, I was like, all right, $150 an hour. It's going to take him at least an hour to do this, if not 2. Is this light worth an additional $300 on top of the freaking $800 it cost me to buy it? And I was like, no, it's not. So back in the box, it went back to Neiman's, and I was like, we will find a light that I can install on my own. And so I'm waiting for that new light now, and we're just kind of gonna keep cracking along. My next light project is Dave's closet. There's an ugly ass light in there, too. I wouldn't even call it a boob light. Doesn't even have a nipple. It's literally just a plain plastic white light with like one and a half bulbs in it. I say one and a half because the other bulb that's supposed to be lit is like halfway dying. Pretty sure some bugs died in there too. So, yeah, those are my weekend projects for the foreseeable future. But I just want you to take this kind of long winded story about how I'm very proud of myself that I am my own amateur electrician around here. And just think about the last time that you were truly proud of yourself. And I guarantee it's because you did something that you never thought you could do because you shortchanged yourself. And I think we do this more often than not. We limit ourselves from our true potential. You know, what is the statistic? Humans only use a very small percentage of their Brain. I don't know what it is, and I don't honestly feel like stopping this recording to go look at it. But whatever. Studies say that we only use like 10% of our brain. And those of us who seem more gifted than the general population or just more talented, they just maybe have access to different parts of their brain. But I don't know what the science behind it is, but what if you could unlock those parts of your brain just by daring to try a key on that locked part? I think that's the whole point of my life this far, is that there are so many things I never thought I would be able to do. Changing my own light fixtures, running a marathon, as I mentioned in a previous episode, being an influencer, hell, going to Fashion Week. Okay, Never thought I would ever go to Fashion Week and sit front row at a fashion show. I basically spent my young adulthood growing up in New York City. I lived in the city for 11 years. That's 11 years worth of Fashion Weeks I never went to. I never dare dream about it. I just thought those are for other more successful, more glamorous people. Yeah, maybe they were at the time. But somebody who's more successful and glamorous than you is just maybe farther along in their journey than you are than in yours. I mean, who's to say you won't be successful and glamorous one day? If you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, well, that's easy for you to say because you have millions of followers and you're there, it's like, yeah, what? There was a time not too long ago, I was where you were listening and thinking, how the hell do I get to this life? And I just kept going, I kept trying, I kept trying different keys on different doors in my brain. And eventually a few doors opened and I realized what I was capable of. And so I think that's the best part about life, is that hopefully we all live long, healthy, happy lives. But the longer you live, the more opportunities you give yourself to unlock more doors, to discover parts of you that you did not know before. I mean, who wants to have it all figured out? Truly, we place so much emphasis on knowing who we are, on having a five year plan, on having a vision for the future that we lose sight of the fact that we often get to the future. Actually, no, not we often. We only get to the future by daring to live through the present. So I always hated that question, whether it was, you know, senior year of college or in a job interview, like, where do you see yourself in five years, bitch? I don't know. I don't know where I'm gonna be in five days, five hours, even five years, please. Do I look like I'm a crystal ball? No. Okay? And whenever people ask me that question now I just say, I don't know where I'm gonna be in five years. And I feel like people don't like that. I don't know is the answer because it gives off of a sense like, oh, you're directionless, like you're aimless. You don't have any goals, and because you have no goals, you're never gonna achieve anything. It like, I mean, what if the goal is just to live well, is just to be the best version of yourself, to live to your highest potential in whatever form that may be. I never liked the idea of sort of setting in stone the exact goal I wanted. I know manifestation is such a huge thing these days, and I think that's great if it works for you, but for me, I didn't manifest this. I just tried. Like, there was no vision board. There was no, oh, I want to be an influencer with a million followers one day. It was just, man, I am just trying to find my way here. I'm just trying to make a living in a creative career with a flexible schedule. Honestly, those were my five year goals. And so it's okay if you have kind of smaller dreams right now. It's okay if you maybe don't dare to dream those big dreams. I didn't. That doesn't mean you're limiting yourself. But I would say before you're ready to dream the big dreams, don't close the door on them. There's a huge difference between saying, look, I don't really want to go there right now because I'm just trying to get to all those steps before that big dream of mine. But I'm not going to write myself off. I'm not going to say, hey, it's never going to happen. It might happen. Even though it feels far fetched right now, right now, let me focus on the goal in front of me, the day ahead of me, the hour ahead of me, and life becomes a little bit more manageable that way. But I guarantee all of you listening to this right now, there are talents hidden within you that you have no idea that you thought you are bad at. Things that you never thought you could be good at, you will be good at one day. You might even enjoy them one day. And so I just urge you, whatever crazy thing it is also shout out to YouTube. They're not sponsoring this. And as far as I know, that is still the social platform that I have the smallest following on. But I gotta say, YouTube is great. You can learn almost anything off of YouTube. I think about my dad when he first moved to the US in the early 90s, trying to teach himself how to replace a light fixture from that like Electricians for Dummies yellow book. If any of you guys remember that series. Is that Dummies series still around? I don't know, Gen Z, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But yes, we used to read books because it used to be the only way we could learn things. I think about this all the time and how lucky I am to be a millennial and to have really come up in this Internet era, but also to have the opportunity to know what life was like prior to the Internet and this technological world that we live in. So there is a part of me that's like so nostalgic for the time when our lives weren't lived in front of screens. Or at least not computer screens, maybe TV screens. But I'm also incredibly grateful. I never had to learn how to read a fold out map. Oh my Lord. When I was growing up, the amount of arguments my parents got in because my mom was supposed to be the human GPS and tell my dad when to exit, but she missed the exit because, you know, you can't blame them. It's like these maps. I need to go find one of these things again. If you're not Gen Z, if you're millennial and older, you remember those fold out maps of like the globe, they were like tiny. It was like, oh, use this magnifying glass to figure out which exit in 800 miles you need to turn on. It was impossible to see. It was so difficult. And so thank God for gps. And the early stages of GPS really started coming out when I was of driving age. I remember the first GPS I ever owned was a Garmin gps. And it was just like a little tiny screen that you kind of put wherever you could on your car, but it told you how to get from point A to point B. And it was pretty reliable. And because of that, I never had to learn how to read a map. But you know what I did learn how to do? How to change a damn light fixture. Man, it feels so good to be a woman sometimes. And I say that because I love the duality, or not even the duality, the multifaceted nature of women. I love the fact that I can be wearing a pair of overalls, changing light fixtures for four hours to then going into my bathroom, showering up, putting on a full bead of makeup, fake eyelashes and all, and know exactly how to glue my strip lashes so that they don't lift up at the corners and stay on all night. Show me a man that can work with that kind of precision. Please. I'll wait. And while I'm waiting, a quick word from my sponsors.
- [19:00]
Mint Mobile
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- [19:03]
Anna Chi
It's a wellness center. You should get a facial.
- [19:06]
Mint Mobile
The lady in the airport thought you were my dad. My God. The Emmy award winning HBO original series returns.
- [19:12]
Anna Chi
There has been more crime on the island. I'm a little freaked out. What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand. Oh, what does that mean?
- [19:20]
Mint Mobile
It means we're not dead yet.
- [19:22]
Anna Chi
Amen. Amen.
- [19:23]
Mint Mobile
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- [19:30]
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- [20:02]
Anna Chi
You know what the best part about life is? That you don't know what's going to happen. That you can try with the best tools that you have in the present to predict what's going to happen in the future, but you really don't know. And there was no better example of that than the super bowl this past weekend when the Eagles not only beat the Chiefs, but completely annihilated them and every single poll or betting website, whatever the odds were. Clearly, I don't gamble. But they all said the Chiefs were going to be the Eagles. That even if it was going to be a close game, Patrick Mahomes was going to do his Patrick Mahomes thing and, you know, score a touchdown in the final few minutes, just like they did a few years ago when it was the Eagles against the Chiefs and they were going to pull through. And that's not at all what happened. And for those of you that don't know, I grew up in Philly, so Philly sports has a soft spot in my heart, especially the Eagles. Because Philly Eagles fans are just a new breed of crazy. And I've got some of that running through me. Even though I am admittedly not the biggest football fan. But I do enjoy watching the Eagles win. It feels like a homecoming or something. There's something about the fact that I grew up every year in the public school system in the greater Philadelphia area. Listening to the Eagles fight song sung at lunchtime or at, like, the school town hall. There is just so much green blood just rinsing all throughout the Philly suburbs that it's hard not to feel a sense of pride when you see your team win. So I'm super happy about the Eagles winning, but I'm also just here to say that if you don't believe me, that you cannot predict the future, good or bad. Just look at the Super Bowl. Nobody thought the Eagles were going to win, and here we are. Maybe you are the Eagles. You know what I think about the Eagles as a sports team, too? I remember the first super bowl they won. It was the 2017-2018 season. I watched the whole damn game, start to finish, alone at home with my parents. I remember I was at home in Philly that weekend. I can't remember why, but I wasn't in the city. I was dating a guy at the time. He was maybe away too. So I decided to go back home to see my parents. And I watched the whole super bowl alone. And I know I was with my parents, but they're not Philly sports fans. So I was just kind of hanging out. They were doing their thing and I was watching the game alone and they won. And it was the first time I felt emotional over a sports team. And I think I felt that way because we had just failed as a city for so long. We had lost not only so many opportunities, but, like, we didn't come close for decades. We'd never won a Super bowl in the modern version of it. I think we'd won some sort of championship game many, many decades ago, prior to, you know, the super bowl being what it is now in its current modern iteration. And so seeing that happen, it was like, oh, my God, sometimes the underdog does win. And I can think of no city that feels more like the gritty underdog that we want to see win than Philly. I am so sorry. If you hate Philly sports, I totally understand it. You know what? I get it. I'm going to practice some self awareness here. I understand our fans are obnoxious, but when you've lost your entire life, when you've been the butt of everyone's jokes. When you've watched everyone else win and then you finally win, I guess sometimes you do have to express your joy by climbing some light poles and eating horseshit. True story. The first time the Eagles won the super bowl, there was a guy who was filmed eating horse manure. I wish I was joking, but, you know, this is not to take away from the fact that I do know that a college freshman in Philly did lose his life by climbing a light pole during one of the championship games. That is tragic and it is nothing short of devastating. And I want to just take a moment to say that it's so easy in a situation like this to be like, oh, well, he shouldn't have been climbing a light pole. How stupid. Or whatever. But it's like, I did so much dumb shit when I was 18 to 22, to 24 that, like, could have easily killed me. And by the grace of God, I lived. And I just feel so much for this kid and his family because we all do stupid stuff in our youth because we're unaware of our own mortality and most of us kind of get away with it. I guarantee a lot of you who are listening, if you're in your 30s, you've probably had some close calls in your early 20s, and you just got lucky. And this kid just got very, very, very unlucky. And now his parents, God, they just have to live with that for the rest of their lives. I mean, I can't imagine sending my son off to college and this is how he loses his life. So have some compassion if you know of that story and just remember that everybody does dumb shit in their youth. And, you know, some of us are just lucky enough not to have to pay the price of our life for it. I also think in times of tragedy, there's this great desire to sort of find the silver lining. Or, you know, well, at least this or that, or at least he died, you know, celebrating a team that he loved. And honestly, like, I feel like if I was his family, I wouldn't want to find a silver lining. Not yet, at least. It's so fresh. I would just want to let it suck because it just sucks. I mean, it more than just fucking sucks. It's heartbreaking, it's devastating. It's earth shattering, it's life altering. It's all of these things. And I'm going to fight the urge to try and put a positive spin on this, because for those of you who are going through your own losses of any kind, you know, sometimes the person who's the one who needs to make the situation more optimistic than it is, it just honestly puts you in a shittier mood. It's like, dude, like, just let me just sink into my hole right now, okay? I will get out of the hole eventually, but let me just wallow, all right? Like, I don't need to see the bright side in this horrible situation. And so I am also going to fight the urge now to put a positive spin on this. Really child losing his life, it feels like. I mean, I know he was a legal adult, but boy, 18 is young. Especially when you're looking at it from the lens of a 34 year old and just say the situation sucks. There's nothing good about it and I'm super sorry to that kid's family. And on that note, we are going to get into some of your voicemails, but before we do, a quick word from my sponsors.
- [27:48]
Mint Mobile
Oh, hey Anna, I just wanted to start off by thanking you for the incredible content that you put out there, particularly your videos on Instagram. I cannot begin to describe how empowering they've been and how fitting they've been for sitting situations that I've walked through or that close friends of mine have walked through. Many a time. I've saved your videos and revisited them in my saves folder on Instagram or I've sent them to friends where they've so perfectly encapsulated a situation that a friend has been walking through. And you always seem to have the right words and advice for that situation. So thank you for sharing your gift and your talent and for putting out such important content that needs to be seen and heard. I wanted to send in a little request that you might perhaps be open to. I would really, really love to hear your thoughts and advice on platonic love and friendships. I know that you create a lot of content on romantic love and relationships, and I think that that is so important and I. I'm really grateful for the content that you do share and put out there. But I would love to hear your thoughts on friendships because I know that friendships form a really big part of our lives and choosing the right friends is really important. And so I would love to hear your words of wisdom on that.
- [29:19]
Anna Chi
First, I want to say thank you for the very kind words about my content and for thinking that I always have the right words to say when truly I don't. It's just that you see a very edited version of the things I have to say and those happen to be the more right things that come out of my mouth versus the very much less right things that come out of my mouth on a daily basis but are not censored by my editing apps. That being said, I think it's interesting that you bring up the open ended topic of friendships because it's something I've actually thought a lot about, particularly over the last four or five years since COVID and in relation to what my friendships look like now at 34 versus when I was 24. I had a lot more friends when I was 24, which I think is very normal. The younger you are, the more social you tend to be. But I also needed more friends in my early 20s. And I say that because I think I needed to keep a big group of platonic female, mostly female, and a few scattered, you know, straight male friends here and there because I felt like if I didn't have this massive group of girlfriends that I could text at any point, that that was a failing somehow on my part that even if I didn't have a boyfriend, well, at least I had my girlfriends, right? But then if I don't have my girlfriends, what do I have? And I think we go through a lot of our 20s as women, especially defining ourselves by our relationships. And it doesn't have to be a romantic relationship, it can be platonic relationships. And just as I've seen very unhealthy, dysfunctional romantic relationships, I've also seen pretty dysfunctional, codependent and unhealthy friendships. Friendships are important. It is important to have friends, but it is more important to befriend yourself. Because friendships do come and go. They are one of the most changeable relationships or some of the most changeable relationships we have in our lifetime. A lot of us don't have lifelong friends, not because those friends that we knew from when we were younger were not true friends. It's just because people grow, they move, they grow apart. They physically move and grow apart to different places, emotionally, spiritually. And not all friends are meant to stay in your life forever. And I think when we try to attach our self worth to our friendships, maybe those friends you've known for years and years and years, possibly decades, we get into this dangerous way of thinking of, oh, if I lose this friendship, Especially if you're not in a romantic relationship and you're saying, well, if I don't have a boyfriend or a husband, at least I have my friends. No, at least you have you. Because if you get into a situation where you start defining yourself by how close you are to, to how Many people, when you lose those relationships, sometimes through no fault of your own, you start to question your self worth. And I've seen that happen not only with, you know, myself, but some of my friends who come to me and say, hey, I remember a conversation I had with a girlfriend of mine who said, I'm not as close with my college girlfriends as I used to be. And that doesn't make me feel great because for so long that was my core group of friends. I knew her from way before college, and so we always had sort of an independent relationship outside of any group. So I think she felt safe telling me this. And I just said, well, why do you need to have a group? I mean, at this stage, we're in our mid-30s. God, I can't believe I just said mid-30s. I almost said early-30s, but I was like, girl, you are 34. You are in your mid-30s. You know, we're in our mid-30s. She's married, I'm married, everybody's. Even if you're not married. The groups change. There are no, There are fewer and fewer clicks. I shouldn't say there are no clicks, but there are fewer and fewer clicks in your 30s. And I urge you to find friends of quality versus friends of quantity. If you have one friend you can go to, or two friends you can go to when you are feeling down and you really trust to be there for you, not just friends who you keep around because they're a way to measure how you're doing in your life. You know what I'm talking about? Like, I feel like a lot of people keep friends in their lives to use them as a measuring stick or other people keep you in their life to use you as a measuring stick as to how well or not they're doing in their life. Don't. Don't hang out with people like that. I'm saying like the friends who are not only there for you when you're down, but there to celebrate your wins. If you've got two of those friends in your life, you are doing way better than a lot of people who have dozens of friends, but nobody who's really there for them when they have nothing to offer and really there to celebrate with them when they win. And you need a friend who can do both. And if you don't have that, be that for yourself for a long time. And I really realized, not the insignificance of friendships, but really that I could survive and possibly even be better for letting go of some friendships that maybe I thought I needed during COVID because we were all very isolated. I did lose touch with some people through no fault of theirs, through no fault of mine. You just end up stopping communication, and sometimes friendships just run its course. But through that experience, through having very little social interaction with some people that I had previously routine interaction with, I just realized, you know what? Sometimes the less voices you have around you, the clearer your own voice becomes. And that was really great for me. I will say, Covid was a really horrifying time. I was constantly scared. It was such a weird thing to be living with your parents in your 30s. I was, you know, living with my boyfriend, now husband at the time, and my parents full time. It's such a strange experience, but a few good things came out of it. And one good thing for me was realizing that I actually needed far fewer people in my life than I thought I did. And so I really hope that you have true friends around you. But my two cents on friendship are that it is a voluntary relationship, and it is not a necessity. It's a luxury to have friends. And I think when we look at it that way, we attach less of our self worth to our relationships, to our friends. And what does that mean? It's like, well, you know, it's nice to have luxury things. Like, it's nice to have a luxury bag. And it makes me feel good. But who I am is not attached to the fact that I have this luxury bag. I love my Chanel, but if it were to leave my life tomorrow, I'd be a little sad for sure. I'd be like, damn, that's a lot of money that just walked out of my life. But I'd be okay because I know who I am at the end of the day. I know I could make enough money one day to buy another bag. And I think people get very offended almost when they hear, oh, are you saying that friends are replaceable? Yeah, I kind of am. And I think that's a controversial take, but I think it's an honest one in the sense that, like, your family members, if you're close with them like I am to my parents, like, they're truly, truly irreplaceable in my life. I cannot think of anybody that would ever fill the void of what my parents are to me, similar to my husband. This is a man I've built the last seven years of my life with. We make decisions together that affect both of us deeply. I don't have a friend like that. And maybe some of you do, maybe some of you cohabitate with Friends, maybe some of you are a little bit more forward thinking, unconventional than me and you live on a friend compound. I've heard of those. I think that's great. But for me, and I think my friends would say this about me too, is that we come and go in each other's lives on a very voluntary, fun basis and we are there for each other. But in the end, no one's life is going to be over or feel like it's ending because I am not in their life. And conversely, no friend of mine is going to leave my life at this stage where I feel like my life is ending. And that's what I mean is that I got into a lot of friendships when I was in college, like codependent female relationships where we were both just two broken people looking to hang on to something and we clung to each other. And that's when you get that whole weird dynamic of, oh, if one gets a boyfriend and the other one doesn't, then there's a lot of animosity there. Oh, you're leaving me for this guy or whatever. No, that's just life. It's not reasonable or possible to be a functioning, productive adult in society with a career in a vibrant social life and expect to be talking to one friend all day, every day, almost as if they were married to you. That's just not possible. It wasn't for me, and it really wasn't for me back then either. But certainly in college and high school, you kind of make excuses and you're like, no one will ever have this bond the way we do. It's like, no. If you feel so deeply for a friend, it might be because they represent something that is missing in you that you have not yet learned how to fill yourself. And the goal is not to have no friends. The goal is not to. To feel badly if you don't have great friends in your life. There will be periods of time where maybe you do lose touch with people and you still have to feel good about yourself during those years, months or days. And there will be times when you are surrounded by friends and you feel part of a community. Well, don't get too attached to that either, because you have value and you have worth outside of that community. So that's my take on friendships. It's a luxury, not a necessity. But I guess I hope on a positive note that it's a luxury. I hope everyone gets the opportunity to experience true friendships, especially platonic female friendships. They have been some of the most formative relationships in my young adulthood. I am so grateful to all of my female friends, past and present and possibly future, to the friends I haven't met yet, and they're a great part of my life. But without them, I will survive and you will too. And that's what we're going to end this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, or if you've been enjoying this podcast, please consider rating, reviewing on Apple Podcasts and subscribing. And if you want to leave me a voicemail to answer on next week's episode, you can do so@speakpipe.com brutallyannapodcast that's speakpipe.com brutallyannapodcast thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you guys next week.
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