Mel Hightower (00:00)
Music

Ji Kim (00:09)
Welcome to the Jam Session podcast, whereby tuning in, we hope you tune into your purpose. I’m your co-host, Ji Kim.

Mel Hightower (00:16)
And I’m your co-host Mel Hightower. Thank you so much for joining us for episode two, where we’re going to talk about friendship. Now this kept on coming up in our prep and our discussion because as you go through transition in your lives, it ultimately affects the company you keep and can result in changes in that circle of people around you.

Ji Kim (00:39)
As you change, you begin to develop new boundaries. And as those boundaries come into play, your friendships may pivot and change along the way as well.

Mel Hightower (00:53)
It doesn’t have to be negative. While in fact there may be some friendships that go away, there are also friendships that get stronger during these times of transition and change that you find yourself in. So we’re going to talk about all of that. Before we dig in, let’s start with a definition of friendship because friendship does mean different things to different people. And Ji, you have one of the most technical definitions of friendship that I’ve seen.

And I think it would be really helpful to hear.

Ji Kim (01:24)
don’t know why it’s so technical. I don’t know if that’s good thing or a thing now. That means I’ve probably thought about it way too much for it to be broken down. for me, I do best when I think about it, I analyze it, and then I can put words to it. I look at friendships as three-tier.

The outer layer or tier three is more of the transactional relationships, my coworkers, acquaintances, and acquaintances that I met through acquaintances. So these are individuals that I’m not spending a ton of alone time with or spending spare time with. It’s more when I’m in business settings, I see them. Then there is tier two, which are friends that I vacation with, have fun with. We kiki, we laugh.

We shop, we eat lunch. I really enjoy their company, but I’m not necessarily sharing my deep dark secrets with them. And then there’s the third layer, tier one, which is the ones that are dear to my heart because they know every aspect of my hopes and dreams. They understand my insecurities and they are the people that I call to talk about my failures and also my wins is really how I look at friendship and how I break it down.

Mel Hightower (02:52)
I have two tiers or categories. So I have acquaintances and I have friends. Acquaintances can be what I call the pleasantry crew where I’m going to spend time. We’re going to talk about our weekends or what have you. And friends for me, and what comes to mind is Maya Angelou where she talks about with friends, you can see the spirit of the other person. It’s the person who’s going to stand for you when you’re not in the room.

It’s the person who shares your values. Even though we may differ on how to get there, ultimately the core of who we are is similar. Friends for me are people who see every aspect of my identity. I don’t hide anything. I am unfettered. Whereas acquaintances on the other hand may only see… ⁓

Ji Kim (03:45)
the top layer.

Mel Hightower (03:46)
Yeah, yeah, the pleasant side or the surface layer of me.

Ji Kim (03:50)
Not your Detroit side.

Mel Hightower (03:52)
No!

Ji Kim (03:58)
You save that for your friends.

Mel Hightower (04:00)
Yes,

my Detroit side is for my friends. So when I stopped sugar coating and I start getting real, that is when we moved into friend territory.

Ji Kim (04:11)
I do want to give one example of how I knew Mel was my tier one dear to my heart. Something had happened with my ex. if you listen to episode one, a lot has happened. But in this specific incident, my car had been keyed. I called Mel and I were talking. And I’ve never heard this term before. But she said, we ride at dawn.

was like, what does that even mean? She said, tell me the address, we ride at dawn. And then she explained to me, and that’s how I knew Mel was my tier one friend. ⁓

Mel Hightower (04:53)
That is right. Cause I definitely, my surface level is always genteel.

Ji Kim (04:59)
Yeah, I told her, I called her and I said, I got my dog and then the next day my new car was keyed and she’s like, what? What’s the address? I was like, what do you mean what’s the address? Like, I’m not gonna go there. And I said, maybe I should call the cops. She goes, no, we ride at dawn. And I said, Lord, what does that mean?

Mel Hightower (05:24)
Well, that means honestly, if somebody is brave enough to cause property damage, they better have enough courage to, you know, post up when we go and ask why that happened.

Ji Kim (05:38)
I knew we were ⁓ tier one friends in my definition because one, that is her Detroit side that not many people get to see. And two, she was so patient with me when I kept saying, what is we write at dawn? Why dawn? Who’s writing? And she was so kind enough to explain everything to me.

Mel Hightower (06:00)
Look, the Detroiter in me is always gonna demand justice. you know, I’m a big believer in matching energy when things like that happen. ⁓

Ji Kim (06:10)
⁓

I love that story. Without having to get all technical, that’s a tier one friendship. ⁓

Mel Hightower (06:15)
My goodness, well look, I have to share mine. So recently when I was trying to make the decision of whether or not to stay at my firm, I remember constantly calling Ji with really the same question over and over again.

Ji Kim (06:34)
But she’s so eloquent, she says it in 200 different ways and I’m just like, girl, basically you’re asking…

Mel Hightower (06:42)
asking, are you going to be broken should you go? You kept on listening to me tell you the same numbers over and over again. And it was the patience that you showed and one always picking up the phone and being supportive and not going girl, you already know the answer to this. We had known each other long enough and well enough that you knew that

I didn’t need tough love, I just needed, and when I trusted to tell me it was gonna be okay.

Ji Kim (07:17)
Yeah, and I think that’s what has made our friendship stronger because what I’ve been able to take away is you’re going to give me what I need versus what you think I need. And I think that comes down to love and affection and care for the friend because whether it’s something good or bad, ⁓

You want to be able to offer the support that they need versus looking at it from your lens. Mind you, when I was younger, I would always look at it from my lens of like what I would do, what I would need in the situation. And then as you grow and evolve with age and life experiences, you begin to look at friendships differently, or at least I have, to redefine it, how important those women friendships are for you.

And then you start showing up very differently.

Mel Hightower (08:19)
That resonates so much with me because oftentimes we’re trying to make people into mirror images of ourselves, right? And we’re all different. So it’s never what you would do. It’s what I would do. I’ve always, I’ve come to view it as an incredible gift to get a call from someone who trusts me enough, one, to be vulnerable. Second, who believes that having that conversation with me is going to encourage them in some way. And it’s a gift that I don’t take lightly. And so as a result, I try to put myself in that other person’s shoes because a core to friendship is empathy.

Ji Kim (09:02)
How privileged I get to be Mel that you want to call me to have us celebrate your win or to talk about something breaking your heart. What I’ve realized about you is in the past, you’re so kind that you’ve been burned and you would think everybody’s your friend, right? And then as you’ve learned, especially in the last two years, you start understanding maybe

I need to call XYZ versus these other individuals.

Mel Hightower (09:37)
That’s important.I don’t want to, I don’t want to run past that broader lesson in that you don’t need to be everybody’s friend and everyone doesn’t need to be yours. And so it’s okay to be an acquaintance. And in fact, we all are someone’s acquaintance. And what Ji’s referring to is that I really used to take it personally when I would switch roles and then people would fall off the face of the earth.

I used to say, well, what happened? And there was nothing wrong with that. It really was because they were always acquaintances who were dealing transactionally. And when I was no longer in a position to be able to deliver for them, there was no real need for us to interact. We can mistake friendliness for friendship.

but that’s important for us to really know the difference. And it was important for me to be comfortable with the idea of I’m going to have acquaintances. And yes, some of those interactions are going to be transactional and that’s okay because we need to get business done. What that realization has done for me, it has caused me to cherish the friendships that I have even more and hold them more dear and to really sort of look at the pleasantries crew.

⁓ to look at them with just a newfound, know, like, okay, cool, you know, we can just deal with one another and it’s fine.

Ji Kim (11:16)
Yeah, it’s not a negative. Everybody has different tiers of friendships and how I look at acquaintances is friendships take work. And if all your acquaintances were your friends, then you would be reaching out, texting, contacting a lot of people during the day or the weeks. So

It is the tiered, for me, the relationships that are tiered where I understand how much effort I’m putting into each bucket.

Mel Hightower (11:49)
So that is a good segue to talking about how do you tell when the tenor of a friendship has changed.

Ji Kim (11:57)
Yeah, like how do you know when it’s time to move on? Maybe you two are veering in two different roads and it’s time to sort of let go.

Mel Hightower (12:09)
Right. For me, it turns out to be more about how I feel.

If I feel burdened by the interaction, that for me is usually a sign that the relationship has transitioned into something else.

Ji Kim (12:28)
For me, it’s all of those things, how I feel when I’m with that individual, but more importantly, how I feel when I’m recuperating the next day. Am I energized or do I feel really drained? I pay very close attention to that, because I know for myself, when I’m drained, it means I was putting forth a lot of effort and energy. And I don’t necessarily think that’s what’s required in a friendship. Two,

is I haven’t seen them in a really long time because I think in tier one friendships I can go weeks months without seeing them for example Mel and I have not seen each other for I don’t know three or four months but we talk in text all the time but when we do see each other it’s as if nothing’s like skipped a beat and when I haven’t seen someone in a while and when we see each other and it feels

off and awkward and the energy is not aligned, then I start wondering sort of have we outgrown each other in some way? Are we not aligned in this friendship? And then three, this is the most important thing for me. And I did not know this until probably about three or four years ago, which is when you are venturing out on something really important in your life.

Your tier one friends are gonna show up for you 120%. You don’t even need to ask them. You tell them you’re doing something in your life that you’re super excited and passionate about. Your tier one true heart friends are gonna be the ones texting you or calling you or just being like, I’m here, whatever you need. It’s the ones that you hear nothing from, no.

celebration, no I’m excited for you, no offering of help. Those are the ones I start questioning of is it time to move on? What I need from this friendship more than what the friend can or is willing to give.

Mel Hightower (14:45)
your tier one friends really want you to win.

Ji Kim (14:48)
Yeah, you want each other to win. mean, why else would they be your tier one? These are the ones that you’re calling to celebrate your wins where you don’t feel like you’re bragging, where you know they’re not going to be jealous, where they’re so excited for you. It’s an imperfect example of this is Mel, when you call me with your promotions or your bonuses or when you

went out on your own or when you got your coaching clients like I’m always going to celebrate your wins for that and I’m always going to be like let me know how I can help and you’re always like I might need this for me this and I’m I’m there I’m there and it’s vice versa when I am working on my website for the coaching or working on the logo you’re the first person I send it to and you’re always responsive and you’re always honest.

And we don’t feel this weird competition like by somehow you winning, I lose. Like I don’t have that in any way with my tier one friends.

Mel Hightower (15:56)
No, because with that, it’s literally, there’s enough room for everybody at the table. so tier one friends are going to want you to pull up a seat and they’re going to make room for you at that table to make sure that everybody gets fed.

Ji Kim (16:14)
I

look at it a basic, your succeed because those friends are the ones when they meet new people, they’re going to interest you to that those new people, right? Like I feel like it’s this big circle of support. And so and we’ve always had that with each other. Like I’ve always loved that about our friendship. There’s never been a moment where I don’t think I can.

get bounce ideas off of you or in any way where I hope you don’t think you can’t call me to celebrate wins.

Mel Hightower (16:48)
No, I agree. And I also what I love best is that there isn’t this feeling of competition. Even when my life is going through going topsy turvy and I’m experiencing challenging times and you might be experiencing amazing victories, I am still incredibly happy for you. I don’t want you to share in my misery. Like, why would I want that for you? I love the fact that there isn’t this competitiveness

to our friendship. And if anything, we’re competitive on behalf of one another. We want to see each other win. We might push each other harder than we push our respective selves. We are each other’s cheerleaders. And that’s what you really want in a friendship. Friendships can certainly be incredible and amazing, but there are times when friendships do change. And it’s important to know that as you go through these pivot moments,

your friendships may have run their course and it may be due to self-discovery or boundaries that you set in place. And I certainly had that. I remember a time where, for example, I had a really good friend. We will call her Janet. Really good friend. We were friends in school. We talked every single day. But it was a stressful time because we were both trying to get jobs and we were both trying to see what was next.

Over time, ⁓ the tenor of our friendship started to change. I felt as if I was walking on eggshells. ⁓ She was snapping quite a bit and she was under a lot of stress. So I brushed it off as once this moment has passed, it’ll be better. Well, she was engaged and she asked me to be a part of the bridal party and I was honored to be a part of that because she was a dear friend of mine.

The of preparing for the wedding really only exacerbated a lot of the stress and it brought a lot of friction to our interactions. She would get upset about something that wasn’t going right with the wedding and would say that I wasn’t being sympathetic enough to her.

Ji Kim (19:07)
You were her punching bag, essentially.

Mel Hightower (19:10)
It felt that way. And I was young, so I felt that’s what you do. You show up even when it hurts. And I kept telling myself that sort of behavior, I could excuse it. And then we get to the wedding. And now that I look on it with clear eyes, there was a level of toxicity there that I don’t think either of us would have wanted for the other, but it existed.

And I reached my limit at the wedding itself where Janet told me ⁓ point blank that she wished she had chosen someone else to be in her wedding party, that she wished she had chosen someone who was married because they would understand the kind of stress that she had been going through and a number of other things to that effect. I was like, nope, this is not okay.

I don’t have to deal with this anymore. And I made the decision then that I needed to move away from the friendship. And it wasn’t some big announcement that I made. I simply just stopped calling. I will tell you, in the weeks that followed, I had never been more stress free. It was like a weight had been lifted off of me to not have

the strain of those interactions sort of hanging over me. She reached out to me and that is when we had the conversation around what was happening. I told her didn’t appreciate what had been said to me, that I wished her well, but I had discovered for myself this boundary around, I’m not going to let anybody talk to me in any old kind of way. And that I deserve as a friend to be talked to with respect, even when you are at your most stressed.

Ji Kim (21:10)
It wasn’t a blowout fight. What I’m gathering is it wasn’t even really about the wedding. It seems like there had been signs that the relationship or the friendship was changing. And for you, the catalyst of reassessing was the actual wedding and her behavior around.

Mel Hightower (21:31)
That’s right. think graduation was one pivot moment and then a wedding was the second one where it really caused me to really reassess not only the friendship but also, you know, way I was allowing myself to be treated.

Ji Kim (21:47)
So what did you learn? Because you talked about boundaries and setting that for yourself in that particular friendship. So what did you learn about yourself back then? And then would you have changed anything today who you are?

Mel Hightower (22:04)
Right, so the first thing I learned was to not suffer in silence.

I became a lot more vocal in treatment and especially in how folks talk to me. I became a lot more vocal and less willing to put up with… ⁓

Ji Kim (22:22)
Bullshit.

Mel Hightower (22:31)
I was gonna say foolishness or nonsense. What it changed for me is my fuse became shorter. ⁓ And it, you know, so I learned to walk away early. I really learned that I like to be drama free. It recalibrated the type of person that I wanted around me. I definitely was looking for folks who had better communication because that communication was so critical for me. And I was in

I had incredible sensitivity to how people said stuff to me. And I didn’t realize that before then. I felt, you know, I was sort of like, I’m Teflon, you can say anything to me. But no, it actually really mattered, especially people that I care deeply.

Ji Kim (23:15)
Yeah, because you value friendship so much Mel, and this is what I know about you and what I’ve known about you for the last eight years, and more so now than before. So when your friend is mean to you or you consider a friend, I know how hurtful that is for you at the core.

Mel Hightower (23:31)
I’m usually like, my gosh, why are they so mean? ⁓

Ji Kim (23:35)
The one question I do have because this happened when you were younger and we’re now visiting it now and we’re in our 40s. Would you have done anything different?

Mel Hightower (23:46)
Yes, I would have. I would have had a conversation much earlier about how I was feeling. That’s the accountability that I need to take on myself. By not saying anything, we fell into a pattern. And what I learned and what I now know that I would have changed ⁓ me flagging it much earlier and having an honest conversation because I didn’t do that.

I let it get to the boiling point where for me the only option was to cut ties completely. And perhaps the relationship could have been salvaged. Had I said earlier, Hey, look, this isn’t cool. So I could have said something. I needed to be a better communicator in my friendships. Sometimes those moments we are tempted to blame the other person wholly when we ourselves have to

realize that we play a role. are not, we don’t go through life with things happening to us.

Ji Kim (24:50)
Yeah, unless it’s an abusive relationship, then obviously it’s one party’s fault. in a friendship where there’s two parties involved, I always think any relationship, friendship included, there’s two parties at play here. And so we all have a part in the demise or the continuation of the friendship.

Mel Hightower (25:15)
I think that’s right. What about you, Ji? I mean, I know you had some friendships that have sunsetted.

Ji Kim (25:22)
I love how you put a plural friendships sunsetted. Like you, mine was a long-term friendship and we’ll call her Amber. I had known Amber since undergrad. gosh, 20, 25 years. We have seen each other through many seasons, many life changes.

Amber and I had a lot of similar traumas from our childhood. With that, in some way, you meet someone and they just resonate with you. We were very close, great friends. Then I started going through this journey of healing, therapy, deep dive into my childhood trauma.

just wanting to be a different person, show up different, see life differently and live life differently. And Amber was very open about the fact that she admired me for doing it, but she was not willing to get really deep and had no desire to address therapy or upbringing.

This is when our friendship started changing because I started changing. It happens when you start dissecting and rebuilding your life. You change as a person. I kept trying to force this to be a tier one friendship and resentment starts building.

Mel Hightower (27:03)
And on whose side was there resentment? Did you feel as if she wasn’t able to be there for you because she was at one layer and you were going deeper?

Ji Kim (27:15)
I think resentment builds on both ends. All of our conversations were less kiki, more heavy, because I was really deep in the healing journey. And you know this, Mel, when you’re in that, some of it’s really heavy. He was so used to me being the shopping, lunch, kiking ⁓ girl, but then when that changes, it’s… ⁓

who is this person? I think that is what she was probably feeling. So we weren’t getting what we needed from each other, but instead of just having conversation of how do we address this, we just continue to force this relationship that we had been so accustomed to for 20 plus years. I wanted it to continue so bad, I didn’t necessarily speak my mind.

Mel Hightower (28:12)
That’s not like you, to not say what was it because of the length of the friendship? Because I can’t imagine having a 20 year friendship. You want to try to hang on to that because there’s so much history there and it’s like an old shoe. It is.

Ji Kim (28:26)
And then she was the one constant, right? My 12 year relationship had ended. My life was changing so much. My jobs were changing. Amber was the one constant person who had not changed in the 20 plus years. She was the same individual who had been in my life all those years. Mel and Amber and I would do these Vegas trips.

This particular trip, both of our energies were just really off. And couldn’t pinpoint it. I, leading up to the trip, was dreading it. Instead of pulling the plug or saying, hey Amber, I think we should share different rooms, I just went with the flow because this is what we’ve done for like seven plus years that we’ve been going to Vegas. I was hoping to some way rekindle our friendship.

I was thinking if this is as fun as it’s always been in the past, then there’s something to salvage there. But that plane ride that whole weekend was very difficult. We were agitated with each other. We weren’t speaking as much leading up to the trip. The reason why I was dreading it was I knew that this friendship was closing.

Mel Hightower (29:47)
and you had already started grieving it.

Ji Kim (29:49)
And I started grieving it and there had things that had happened along the way where I started tallying up the things I felt that she did me wrong. And once I start doing that, game over.

Mel Hightower (30:06)
What prompted that? Keeping score is so-

Ji Kim (30:10)
First of all, it’s not me and when you start keeping score then that’s more of a transactional relationship. And three, the fact that I’m so vocal and upfront that but I was not with her. Like all of this thing started just causing a lot of turmoil for me internally. But I think for me the biggest part where I just knew there was no going back.

and I don’t know why I didn’t say anything was, Mel, you had invited Amber and I to Art Basel in Miami. Amber and I were discussing going, planning the trip, like we always do, getting really excited. At this point, Amber had come into some money and we were talking about the hotels we’re going to stay at.

Usually we were in the same bracket. Her bracket had changed. She started bringing to me hotels that were really expensive. I’m very up front. I live within my means. I will not do something that’s going to stress me out financially. So I outright told her, Amber, I can’t do this. This is too expensive. And her statement back to me was, what is the point of you going?

And right then and there, I should have said something. I didn’t. I was so taken aback because I was looking at her from the lens of like the Amber that I knew when we came up together in undergrad where we had no money. I never thought that that would shift who she was or how she dealt with me. But that hurt me so deeply. I’m being vulnerable and being honest. I can’t afford this.

Mel Hightower (31:53)
Alright.

Ji Kim (31:57)
Instead of doing all the things that I would do as a Tier 1 friend or expect a Tier 1 friend to do for me, the statement back to me was so disheartening.

Mel Hightower (32:10)
Almost as if you were fungible, I can understand.

Ji Kim (32:13)
This was six months before Vegas trip. That statement never left my mind. Every time I dealt with her after that, I was just agitated. So when we went to Vegas, I just knew we weren’t who we were to each other. Understand that I should have given her grace. I understand that I should have spoken up, but I didn’t.

Mel Hightower (32:36)
But you were her.

Ji Kim (32:37)
I was so hurt, I was also very angry. I felt like it was so disrespectful and I don’t always give grace to someone who’s very disrespectful to me.

Mel Hightower (32:46)
And what happened from there? So I saw what happened at Vegas, you know, and it was evident that there was awkwardness. And so after that…

Ji Kim (32:57)
After that, we took the flight back and we hugged goodbye and I knew deep down that was the last time I was going to see her.

I think she knew it as well because we didn’t text each other for another six months after that.

Mel Hightower (33:16)
Wow.

Ji Kim (33:18)
She both knew that this friendship was coming to a close because the reason she reached out was it was my birthday and usually she sent a long text and it was just more of like an acquaintance text of happy birthday best wishes.

Mel Hightower (33:36)
Looking back, what lessons did you learn from that experience about your friendships?

Ji Kim (33:43)
I thought about what was my part because it was me, it’s not just Amber. What I learned about myself is if I want something to last, if something matters to me, then I speak up. I had always known that with my changing, her staying the same, this relationship was not tenable. This was ending. And then the second piece of it is just let it go. I knew a long time ago

that because I was changing so much and I wanted friends in my life that also wanted to do the work and it doesn’t have to be the same work but wanted to evolve.

Mel Hightower (34:27)
Well, I think back to the fact that Amber was so transparent about what she was able to provide. When I think back to our definitions of friendships, friendships are, you have to be able to share all aspects of yourself and you were moving into a different journey that she wasn’t going to be able to share a part in and your friendship was going to change based on that alone.

Ji Kim (34:53)
Yes, that would have been the right time for me to not try to force her into the tier one friendship. That would have been the right time to mentally say to myself and even possibly her, hey, I don’t have any expectations from you.

Mel Hightower (35:12)
There are times where ⁓ we look for ourselves in other people instead of taking people on at face value and what they’re able to give us.

Ji Kim (35:22)
I was egotistical about putting on her, almost forcing and wanting her to go on the same journey I was on because I thought or think it’s so beneficial. I mean, it’s the right journey for me and I loved it and it was hard and I learned so much, I continue to learn, but not everybody wants to be on that difficult journey.

Mel Hightower (35:44)
And kudos to her for knowing herself and saying, no, that’s not for me.

Ji Kim (35:48)
Yeah, like I don’t want to change. I don’t want to evolve and no I don’t want to deal with all that crap

Mel Hightower (35:53)
Well, I think these were learning lessons for us both. Not only did we have friendships ⁓ that we needed to let go, but at the same time also discovered new friends. So I had a friend, Sam, who I lost touch with and reconnected with after law school. And it was like we had never lost touch. It was right when…

I was going through my transition into self-employed life. I was really experiencing a crisis of confidence. And she came through with these simple but poignant sayings. She would say to me, Mel, you are enough. Even if you don’t do anything else, you’re enough. She always made time. One of my tier one friends. She’s magnificent.

And I’m so grateful to have her counsel and so grateful for her friendship. There are times where the transition that you experience can provide you with the clarity that you need to see people in new lights and to see folks for the amazing people that they are right in front of you.

Ji Kim (37:10)
Oh, I agree with that 100 % because like you, I had a friend in my life and I would say she was tier two. Yeah, tier two. mean, we worked together and then we became friends and we would hang out, go to dinner. Wouldn’t necessarily share dark, deep secrets, but definitely enjoyed each other’s company. And we had known each other, gosh, nine, 10 years, but it wasn’t until the last

year where we became profoundly closed. I’m not going to tell her story, but she was going through something very difficult. Out of the blue, she called me one Saturday afternoon and we just talked. Since that moment, you know, we’ve had many, many phone conversations, very deep questioning.

everything that has solidified our friendship and she always says every time we see each other who would have thought that one phone call would have turned into this. I agree that there can be people in your life that are beautiful and amazing and you see them in one light or you have one kind of friendship and then something happens you change they change all of sudden it’s evolved into such a deep connection and I love that I love that

friendships can change and evolve and it can turn into something beautiful as this friendship has turned into for me.

Mel Hightower (38:42)
I that’s the lesson that we want our listeners to take away too. Things don’t have to remain static. Change can be a wonderful thing.

Ji Kim (38:51)
Yeah, and it doesn’t need to be dramatic and horrible. This thing about letting go, and I know everyone talks about it, but it’s how I view friendships now is instead of holding on so tightly, sometimes the most beautiful thing you can do is to let it go. And then once you let it go, then you’ll have new friendships or friendships that you already have will become profoundly stronger because now you have

More space.

Mel Hightower (39:21)
Yeah, and who knows? The friends that you had to let go may, you know, show back up in your life down the road. We don’t know.

Ji Kim (39:31)
We don’t, I mean, we have no idea where our lives are heading. We can plan and goal set and all these things, but Mal, you and I know life happens and shit can get.

Mel Hightower (39:42)
It’s

just not just I want to plan for it. Life happens. What this has taught me more than anything else is that you got to just enjoy the journey and it’s okay.

Ji Kim (39:52)
Sometimes

it’s okay to wake up some mornings of like, fuck my life. ⁓ I still have those moments. Mel has those moments. And then the next day, it’s beautiful again. Nothing is permanent. That’s how I view friendships, that they’re gonna ebb and flow.

Mel Hightower (40:07)
What’s been great about our friendship is that we’ve been able, and I think this is all relationships, but in particular with friendships is that good friends evolve with each other. We’re not afraid of feelings. We’re not afraid of having tough conversations. In fact, that’s where we thrive. And the reason why we’ve grown so close and we’ll continue to be close. I think that’s a lovely spot to end the discussion. And I hope you

have enjoyed hearing about the friendship that Ji and I have, have the friendships that have entered our lives and those that we’ve had to let go. And hopefully that will help inspire or illuminate your own journey. Now that you’ve heard from us, we want to hear from you. We are so excited to hear about your friendships and how they have changed. We also want you to send us any

questions or topics, can email us at info at jam session dash podcast.com. Don’t forget to stay tuned in for our next episode. You can also connect with us on all social media and thank you.

Ji Kim (41:24)
Thank you so much and just remember you deserve beautiful friendships.

Mel Hightower (41:29)
And we hope that by tuning into us, it helps you to tune in to your purpose.