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When I moved to this new city a year ago, I had plenty of family around, but I quickly realized something was missing.

Family is wonderful, but they’re not the same as friends—the ones you can call on a whim to grab coffee or watch a movie with on a lazy Saturday.

I’ve always been privileged to have strong friendships, whether Stateside or in the other places I’ve lived. But here, in my new city that I now call my “permanent home” it’s different. I have a friend or two, sure, but I’m not surrounded by the close-knit group I’ve grown accustomed to.

One of my friends, someone I’m close with but who isn’t in this new city, once told me, “I’ll always be there when things hit rock bottom.” Meaning… don’t look for me when things are going okay when life is middling, trite, banal, boring. Those times you handle on your own. But when sh*t hits the ceiling, I will be there for you.

It was comforting to hear that back then, knowing she’d drop everything and be there if I truly needed her. I am lucky and privileged to have a few of those. Knowing that she’d be there when I really needed her filled me with a sense of fulfillment like a safety net was securely in place. It was comforting to know that in my darkest moments, I wouldn’t be alone. But deep down, something about her words bothered me, like a small itch at the back of my mind. For a long while, I couldn’t figure out what it was.

And as the weeks turned into months, and the excitement of a new place wore off, I began to feel the weight of the mundane. Sure, it’s great to have the “Will pick up if I call at 2 a.m. friends” but what about those “Will they pick up if I call them at 10 a.m. on a Saturday” ones? You know…on those ordinary weekends that start to stretch out like endless gray skies.

I recently found myself almost dreading the weekends. I started to notice something unsettling: while I had plenty of people to call in a crisis, I had few to share the quiet, uneventful moments within this brand-new city.

This hit me hard a few weekends back. All my family was busy, and so were the few friends I’ve made here. I was bored and started scrolling through my contacts, looking for someone to hang out with. But no one had time. It wasn’t just that they were unavailable—it was the realization that I didn’t have that many people to reach out to in the first place.

This has happened a few times, and that’s when it struck me: I am incredibly wealthy in terms of having friends and family who will be there when sh*t hits the ceiling, but I barely have anyone to share the boring, mundane times with.

It was a revelation, like realizing you’ve been holding the wrong key all along. I started to see how important it is to have people around not just for the storms but for the calm days too. The quiet Tuesday evenings when nothing happens. The Saturday mornings when you have no plans, no distractions, just the ticking clock and a cup of coffee for company.

It’s ironic, really. If you’re privileged enough to have money, you can always hire someone when things go south—a therapist, a life coach, even a personal assistant. But you can’t hire someone to fill the quiet moments with warmth, with laughter, with the simple joy of shared silence. Those are the moments when you truly need your friends and family to show up, to remind you that you’re not just living through life’s crises, but its everyday rhythms too.

I think back to that conversation with my friend and realize now what was missing. Friendship isn’t just about the dramatic rescues during life’s disasters. It’s about the daily presence, the shared coffee on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the random texts just because. It’s the small talk that fills the silence, the laughter over nothing in particular, the comfort of knowing that someone’s there even when nothing’s happening.

Building new friendships in a city where you’re a stranger is hard. My work schedule doesn’t help—long hours at multiple jobs leaves me with little time to socialize. It takes time, I remind myself. It’s been a year, and maybe it’ll take longer to find the kind of connections that turn a random Saturday into something special. But those lonely Saturdays? They still need company.

So, I’ve started to appreciate the friends who do reach out for the mundane. The ones who text just to say hi, or suggest a random coffee meetup, even if it’s over Zoom. These are friends who are there for the boring stuff, and who can make even a trip to the grocery store feel like an adventure. They remind me that friendship isn’t just about surviving the tough times—but about truly living in the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday.

And in this realization, I’ve found a new kind of wealth—the kind that fills not just the emergency fund but the everyday moments too.

What about you? Have you found yourself feeling the same way? Do you have people who show up when life is simply…normal? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Because maybe, in sharing these moments, we’ll find that we’re not as alone as we think.

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