You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult

by Lane Moore

You deserve to have everything you want, even if it feels scary, even if you’ve been hurt.

she had my back, and I had hers, always.

weather those feelings and see them as just that: my feelings. They are mine to deal with, mine to observe, and watch them pass by.

She was fearless and eternally confident.

“Wow, this is what it feels like to walk through the world feeling free and safe and like you can do and have anything? This feels amazing!”

when someone comes into your life, promising you many of the things you’d wanted and not delivering on them, you might think, That’s OK! No one’s perfect

If consistency is important to you, crucial even, you deserve people who do what they said they would do.

You deserve someone who makes sure they do the important things.

it’s OK to hold out until you find them.

I often need to remind myself that I deserve them, and it’s OK to need them,

sometimes people come into our lives just to show us what we don’t want, and those people have given us the gift of being a mirror.

there is always a next time.

Two opposites can balance each other out and open each other up to new things.

The truth is, having great Stranger Luck, and really memorable interactions like this is meaningful if it means something to you.

The truth is, many exes will tell you they still want to be friends because they want to keep knowing you, because you mean something to them.

you have people in your life who are there to support you

You were born to warm, loving people who are able to openly love you, see you, and relate to you. I feel

families are where boundaries are most necessary

most important thing to remember in your friendships with your family members is that your needs matter too.

a necessary rerouting to a better path which will lead you to the people who are right for you. The people you get to choose.

we’re never fighting, but we’re never clearing anything up either.

We’re never allowing ourselves to fully be heard, and thereby allowing the other person to tell us why they feel or act the way they do.

Especially if you, like me, hate yelling, or hearing yelling, and it just makes you want to cry.

Steering away from blame and things like “you always do this”

but if you can figure out a way to make it productive—no fault, no blame, just two people working together to find common ground—and it’s done well, it can be an opportunity for you to both meet each other where you are, and grow and change together.

truth is you have changed shape. Your edges have softened, you have expanded.

Maybe they stayed the same. Maybe they contracted or expanded in a different way. But you don’t fit anymore.

no one really tells you what growth ...

You don’t like the way they treat other people.

You view money in totally different ways and it really stresses you out.

Trust your intuition and that gnawing in your gut that something is off, and explore where it leads you.

I haven’t heard from them in a while, I guess they don’t like me as much anymore, what good does that do either of you?

If your people are truly your lifelong people, they will grow with you, they will change with you, and they will honor your feelings about how they’ve changed,

just as much as you’ll honor their feelings about how you’ve changed.

long-term friendships will be both a grieving and discovering process...

I used to spend so much of my time trying to fix the things I couldn’t control,

Rather than remaining stuck in self-blame or shame, take pride in your ability to be honest with yourself about what led you here, that you are here, and feel the relief that you are finally seeing these patterns, and that you no longer want to repeat them.

especially if you have anxiety, the best people are the ones who make you feel safe to be all versions of yourself.

everyone loves getting paper mail and that it will never go out of style.

If they have you over for dinner, do the dishes without saying a word.

Shoot them a text just to let them know you’re thinking of them.

I’ve had to work to grieve and release the part of me that didn’t think it could happen, is still hurting from all the friendships that were harmful

still scared my new friendships will go away or become harmful.

It’s weirdly hard to let go of that identity, even though it...

then one day you finally think you’ve found your people, but then they hurt you, or it falls apart, and you’re once again back to what you knew: solitude, disappointment, loneliness, and the want for something better.

Finding your people is all of these things. It’s grief, and hope, and fear, and work, and adjustment and communication.

I want to walk through that door and step into a world where I am known, where I am seen, where I am celebrated.

I want to know this party is for me, for all the things I’ve been and all that I’m becoming.

the person I am in this moment, feeling as loved as I should’ve always been.

I am not a shelter cat, no one ever is. I know that people are, no matter what has chipped away at them, deserving of love and boundless adoration.