How important is friendship and what does friendship even mean in today's world?

Some thoughts and experience on friendship from a Gen X white woman living in Jamaica.

“What’s the best time of year to visit you in Jamaica?”

My eyes squinted from the blue light, and I leaned back on my pillow, sighing loudly to myself, or maybe to the dog, too. Don’t get your hopes up, I said to myself. I picked up my near-ancient iPhone X (it is 2025, after all) with its perpetually cracked screen protector, and began typing “Omg, I would LOVE for you to come and visit! We can go to the beach, I’ll give you a massage, it will be like a BFF retreat! It’s about time someone from my previous life wants to come and see me…it’s been almost seven years after all, and I would love for you to be my first official visitor from my more than 40-year life in California…”

I pressed on the back button, watching each letter disappear. Another deep and heard-only-by-me-and-the-dog sigh swooshed out of my body, and I lamented silently: Making her feel bad for not visiting sooner isn’t going to get her to hurry up and come. My eyes and heart stung a bit as I brushed the growing curls out of my face, took a deep breath, and began to type again. Sometimes, I felt like choosing my life in Jamaica also meant choosing to let go of my friendships from before I moved, because none of them felt the same anymore. I felt like an infomercial for Jamaica as I wrote what was becoming my standard answer to this question, not what I really wanted to write.

It’s not unusual for friendships to change in life, yet certain ones have an exquisite ache when they aren’t the same as they used to be.

You don’t even have to move to another country or a tropical island to feel the sting of a changed friendship, do you? Sometimes friendships change quietly, and you don’t even notice when it’s happening because you are busy life-ing. Messages become less frequent, you stop knowing what’s happening in someone’s day-to-day life, you forget about the private joke you shared about maple donuts that was once so funny. And then one day you’re sitting quietly and content, drinking a cup of coffee, and your heart aches a bit because a part of you still remembers with fondness how you used to sit and drink coffee with her, and chat about everything and nothing, and now it’s been years since you’ve seen her. You realize that you no longer remember what she smells like, and you feel a sadness so deep that now your coffee tastes like tears.

I sat there staring at the cracked phone screen and pushed send, waiting for the satisfying “delivered” to show up. “Anytime is a good time for you to visit, really! It’s super-hot in the summer but the tickets are cheaper…” I closed my eyes and imagined typing what I really wanted to say. I really wanted to ask why I wasn’t important enough to make visiting me in Jamaica a priority. I wanted to ask why she wasn’t important enough to take time off work and make it a priority for herself to get away. I wanted to ask how the fuck she could ask me this question again, getting my hopes up, only to be dashed away when I find out months later, she had made her travel list for the year, and I didn’t make the cut…again. I wanted to ask what a girl needs to do to get her friend’s ass on a plane to see her. I wanted to ask if we are still even really friends.

What does it mean to be a friend today, especially in this modern world?

Is a Zoom call good enough? What if there are no Zoom or video calls? What if there have only been text messages of some sort for more than a year, or two, or more? What does it mean to show up as a friend nowadays? What does it mean to show up as a friend when your friend picked up and moved to another country without even asking if you minded? Do you need to be present, in-person at some point, or even better on a regular basis, to have a real friendship with someone? Does friendship even mean the same thing to every person?

Sometimes life topics like friendship yield more questions than answers, don’t they?

“Greetings, Deanna! We are coming from Kingston to Portland; do you have a recommendation for a place we can stay?”

“Hello, Deanna! I want to stay in Jamaica for two months this year and I’m so excited. I have some questions about how to deal with my cell phone while I’m there. Can you give me a call please?”

My eyes squinted from the blue light, and I leaned back on my pillow, sighing loudly to myself, or maybe to the dog, too. When did I sign up to be a Portland travel agent? I wondered. While I pined to have my friends come and visit me to no avail, here I sat fielding messages from people I barely knew who met me once or maybe twice, were inspired by my story, and now apparently saw me as their personal link here on the island. Does a potential friendship live in one of these people? I couldn’t help but wonder. When I dug deep, it didn’t feel like the fertile ground needed for growing a friendship because their primary interest lay in getting information from me, not giving or most importantly, reciprocity.

Sometimes this capitalist world can feel so transactional, can’t it?

Discerning when someone genuinely wants to connect with you and when they only want something from you is a superpower worth cultivating. It’s a balance with staying open to receive connection and protecting yourself from those whose intentions are transactional (or worse). Choosing to remain open to connection despite the risks associated with it is something the world needs more of.

In a world that favors the meaningless, fast fashion, content over true wisdom, and convenience, it’s a quiet rebellion to eschew all of that and show up as your true and vulnerable self, trusting that the universe will send you the right people to connect with.

“Deanna, what has your experience been like with Jamaican women? Do you have any Jamaican female friends?”

I stared at the blank page before me, the question above quietly screaming to be addressed. That’s an entire essay in and of itself, I thought. Deciding to give that question the proper attention and due, I opened a new document for the draft, closed my laptop, and let the question simmer in my heart and mind.

Until next time.

I’d love to connect with you about how friendship shows up in your life in this modern world, so please drop into the comments with the handy button below or reply to this email.

I’m curious how friendship shows up for the different generations, so if you have perspective to share from this angle, I’d love to hear it!

If you have specific questions for me that you’d like me to address in the follow-up to this essay about making friends with Jamaican women, please share them. I’m all ears 👂🏽👂🏽👂🏽👂🏽

It has been an honor to have your time and attention today. It is not something that I take lightly in a world that vies for your attention in every single moment. If you read something here today that touched you, please share it with me or someone else so that spark travels.

If you feel called to support my work here on Substack, here are some ways you can do so:

🩵Give this post a heart to let me know that it landed for you or share it with someone else using the handy share button below:

🫂Become a free or paid subscriber to stay connected with me by using the handy-dandy button below. Paid subscribers get weekly content and live sessions with me monthly and seasonally (and it’s just $2 USD/week!):

🎨If you’d like to buy me some art supplies or coffee ☕you can send me a likkle love on PayPal or Venmo (deannalynn523) or via Zelle (707-367-2345, Deanna Hamilton)

Thank you so much for being here, I am sending you so much love, peace, and contentment,

Deanna 🩵☮️🙏