This month in friendship: January 2025

Things to read, watch, and send to your besties

In case it’s not obvious, we think about friendship a lot. This also (blessedly) means that our feeds and algorithms are full of friendship and community-related content.

To share some of these treasures with you, we’re starting a new monthly roundup: This month in friendship! Think of it as part news update about friendships, part recommendations corner, with a sprinkling of lovely little things to send to your dearest friends to remind them how much they matter.

thesweetfeminist

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We’re thinking about: The surgeon general prescribes friendship

On his way out the door as Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy issued a “parting prescription” for America, and it was all about the power of community — including our friendships — to help us heal and give us fulfillment in life.

Relationships, service, and purpose are the time-tested triad of fulfillment that stands in contrast to wealth, fame, and power which define the modern-day triad of success. There is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing wealth, fame, and power; the challenge is when we assume these elements are the key to fulfillment and then proceed to build a society that makes these the litmus test for an individual’s inherent worth and value. The triad of success is focused on the individual. The triad of fulfillment connects us with something bigger than the individual. The triad of success may earn us praise and possessions. The triad of fulfillment gives us meaning and belonging.

Dr. Murthy goes on to describe how deepening relationships requires an “explicit commitment to be a part of each other’s lives and to make those lives better” along with a dose of “courage to be vulnerable and real with each other,” how being a good friend can actually give us a greater sense of purpose, and that the skills to foster and maintain friendships “need to be cultivated with intention and care.”

Best of all, he says filling this prescription can be as easy as reaching out to people we care about each day, prioritizing regular connection (no matter how brief), and finding ways to support friends with small acts of kindness. As far as we’re concerned, that means the Surgeon General has prescribed sleepy kitten time.

Thanks to

How to Feel Alive with Catherine Price

for tipping us off to this news!

aabbieren

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Forevers of the month: Revisiting 60 years of friendship letters

We absolutely loved discovering this beautiful essay by Megan Vered about her experience sitting down with her lifelong friend Steph to read all the letters they had written each other throughout their lives.

We especially love the feeling of ritual and ceremony of it all:

Before Steph arrived, I set the scene with ceremonial care: the well-organized accordion file of letters, dating back as far as 1968; a notebook and pen; two mugs of Constant Comment tea with honey and milk, our chosen beverage all those years ago when we would lie stomach down on the living room shag carpet, Joni Mitchell crooning on the stereo. Finally, to sanctify the mood, I queued up our all-time favorite Mitchell album, 1968′s “Song to a Seagull,” on Spotify.

Megan’s closing thoughts on how a deep friendship like this takes intentional nurturing also really stuck with us:

Over the years, Steph’s children, who have found glee in the gambit of nicknames, goofy faces and hard-core laughter, have frequently asked, “Am I ever going to have a friend like Megan?” While they have witnessed how we prop each other up with comfort and concern, they aren’t aware of the times we have spoken out of turn, had our own best interest at heart, or left the other one in need… Friendship is not a perfect give-and-take, but there is nothing more perfect than gathering long-lost letters, keepsakes and memories. Nothing more perfect than nurturing the bond and staying connected. All for the love of a friend.

We highly recommend reading the whole thing as well as her essay about her 70th birthday adventures with friends. Honestly, we’d like to be friends with her. And

Megan Vered

, if you read this, we request an update on the 10-year anniversary reading!

mollyburford

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Currently consuming: A bingeable show about chosen family

Erin has been recommending the show Somebody Somewhere constantly lately. It wrapped its third and final season late last year, and she thinks it’s one of the best shows she’s ever seen period, but particularly when it comes to representing the impact friends can have in our lives.

On its surface, it’s about a woman processing grief and finding herself after moving back to her small, midwest hometown to care for her dying sister. But really, it’s about how the people we surround ourselves with — especially our friends — get us through the good and bad in life. It’s about friends who choose to prioritize each other, even in the midst of other relationships, who work through messy things to stay in each others’ lives, and who aren’t afraid to creatively express their affection (as demonstrated in the clip below, from the finale of the first season, where the main character shares a song she wrote for her friend).

As co-star Jeff Hiller said in an interview about the show’s ending: “We upheld this weirdly radical thought that a friendship can be a beautiful bond and be enough.”

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel your heart warmed by the humanity of everyday people (which we could all use more of right now). Streamable on Max, invite your forever over and settle in! (Which is precisely what we’ll be doing when Sam, who has not seen this show yet, visits Erin next month.)

iamthirtyaf

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ICYMI: A Forevers recap!

• We’re hosting our first (virtual! free!) event — a friendship poetry-writing party that’s just a week away! It’s going to be fun and relaxed and there’s zero writing experience required. Learn more and get your ticket before they’re gone!

• We suggested some ideas for setting resolutions with your friends and, guess what? It’s not too late! You can write resolutions anytime!

• We shared a bit more of the story and inspiration behind this project!

• We explained how doing nothing with your friends is doing something with your friends!

• We’re still new here and want to build a huge community of forever friends. If you have a few in your life who you think would enjoy our musings on friendship, we’d love it if you’d share it with them!

renographics

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Did we miss some great friendship content this month? Leave a comment sharing your findings!