The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

by Rachel Wilkerson Miller

Don’t write off people who are at different life stages than you. Whether you’re just starting college or sending your third child off to grad school, it’s completely reasonable to want to make friends who are doing roughly the same things you are. And I don’t want to gloss over the importance of building a community around shared life experiences or identities—those commonalities really do matter. But we miss out on valuable relationships when we write people off for being, say, too old or too young, or for not being parents or not being students. These days, fewer of us are attending religious services, getting to know our neighbors, and engaging in civic activities, which means we have far less exposure to people at different life stages. But talking to people from different generations broadens our worldview and makes us kinder, smarter, and more empathetic. These friendships are also just practical. For example, if you, a thirty-six-year-old parent, need a last-minute babysitter on a Saturday night, who are you going to call? Your thirty-five-year-old BFF with a newborn and a toddler and a super firm bedtime schedule? No—you’re going to call me, because I don’t have kids and I’d absolutely love to hold your baby! Or maybe you’ll call the person who has been an empty nester for years, or your twenty-three-year-old former intern. There’s a reason that for most of human history, humans have organized themselves in networks that include elders and youths, y’all. And even ...