What Being Laid Off and Becoming a Caregiver Taught Me About Friendship
When my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, my world tipped on its axis, and life as I knew it was irrevocably altered.
I’m a very private person—ironic, considering I’m pouring myself out to strangers on the internet—so telling my work colleagues this deeply personal news made my skin itch.
At the recommendation of senior leadership at my then job, I drafted an email to the whole company, outlining my mom’s treatment plan and what it meant for our family going forward.
It ended with this:
Work provides a sense of normalcy for me, and I'm committed to maintaining my responsibilities. As I balance work and caregiving, I ask for your patience and flexibility in the coming weeks and months.
Jesus Christ. How clinical.
I felt like I had to keep it all together. Family was my value, but work was my priority—how could I choose?
(I think that tension was the beginning of my burnout)
Hard as that email was to send, the harder task came next: telling my friends. And asking them to be there.
For the first time in a long time, I had to ask for help.
Really ask. Not hint. Not hint harder. But name it.
And that was… vomit-inducing.
I kept it simple:
I would appreciate it if you all reached out every now and then. It doesn't need to be weekly, but it helps me feel "normal."
Updates on your life, pictures of anything, coffee you drank, and your afternoon walk, updates about mundane things. It keeps it so that my world isn’t just "my mom has cancer, and I'm the primary caregiver."
This was a season where I didn’t need hustle—I needed holding.
And then, not even four months later, I was laid off.
What followed was a crash course in something I never expected to learn so intimately: Crisis doesn’t just shift your priorities—it reshapes your relationships.
The Many Ways People Show Up (or Don’t)
Some people showed up exactly how I needed. A few friends sent check-ins at the same time every week. One dropped off desserts and a note that said nothing about cancer—just “thinking of you.” Others sent me memes or random updates from their day, like I had asked.
They were small things, but they reminded me that I existed outside of crisis.
That I was still me.
But then there were the people who didn’t show up. Or didn’t show up in the ways I had imagined.
At first, I was angry. And if I’m being honest, under that anger was something softer and harder to admit: I was hurt. These were people I had shown up for. People who I thought would rush in. People who I assumed knew how to be there for me.
But what I’ve come to understand is this: We are all just doing the best we can, with the tools and capacity we have.
Not everyone knows how to hold someone in grief or how to be with someone in the messy middle.
Some people back away, not because they don’t care—but because they’re afraid they’ll say the wrong thing. So they say nothing. And I had to learn how to hold grace for that.
That’s not the same thing as letting people off the hook. It’s just… well, it is loosening my grip on expectations I didn’t even realize I had placed on others.
Having needs is human. Having expectations is too.
But demanding someone else meet them exactly as I envisioned leads to resentment.
When I was laid off a few months later, I figured the people I worked with daily—the ones I had just been in the trenches with—would reach out and ask if I was okay. I thought they would say something.
But instead… crickets. It was so quiet, it was almost loud. There was no email. No text. No slack. No casual “you’ve got this.” And again, that same sharp ache bloomed: disappointment laced with confusion.
I had become invisible the second I was no longer relevant… useful… there… At least, that’s how it felt.
That experience—stacked on top of caregiving—taught me something I didn't know I needed to learn: Some friendships are built on proximity, not presence. And when the proximity disappears, so do they.
That doesn’t mean those connections were fake. It means they were situational. And when the situation changed, so did the closeness.
There’s grief in that. But there’s also clarity.
Friendship by Proximity vs. Friendship by Choice
Friendship takes root in different ways. And like any garden, not everything is planted the same way or meant to last through every season.
You can have a friendship based on a shared history.
You grew up on the same street, played on the same soccer team, and sat next to each other in class. These are your history keepers. They remember your childhood email address, your middle school heartbreak, and the name of your first pet. They were there before you even knew who you were becoming.
Then there’s friendship based on proximity.
The ones that grow from shared environments. Think of your neighborhood friends, school friends, college roommates, and coworkers. What did you have in common? You were there. In the same room, same routine, same season of life.
Maybe that’s why so many adult friendships bloom at work.
You spend eight hours a day side by side—in the weeds, digging and pulling, sweating through the stress of deadlines and deliverables. And from that soil, something begins to grow. A shared laugh. A coffee run ritual. A person who gets it without you having to explain.
But proximity doesn’t always mean permanence.
When the conditions change—when one of you leaves the job, moves away, or steps into a new season—some friendships fade like annuals in winter.
And that’s not failure. That’s nature.
Then there’s friendship by choice.
These are the ones not born out of convenience, but connection. They often grow slower, quieter. But they are the most resilient. I think of these friends like native wildflowers—drought-tolerant, rooted deep, able to withstand long stretches without tending.
They’re not high maintenance, but they’re always there. They reach out just when you need them.
They know how to sit in silence without trying to fix it.
They see who you’re becoming, not just who you’ve been.
They remember who you are, even when you’ve forgotten.
They meet you where you are, not where they think you should be.
These are the friendships that don’t just survive the storms. They grow through them.
And in this strange in-between—laid off, caregiving, stripped of old roles—I began to see which roots were holding.
Practicing Friendship Differently
All of this—caregiving, burnout, the layoff—changed how I see friendship. It has also changed the way I show up in my friendships.
If you were to ask me just four months ago what being a good friend looked like, I might have said something like showing up, making plans, knowing every detail about my friends, and consistently being in contact — what I thought I should do in my friendships.
But now, I understand that isn’t how I best show up for others. Nothing reshapes your understanding of connection like being cracked open.
One quote that has stayed with me is this: ‘We’re all just walking each other home.’
Friendship is not about forever or being perfect, but it is a practice. It’s having grace for others and for myself. Removing the shoulds: I should show up more. They should check in more. We should talk more.
I used to think the best friendships were effortless. Now, I think they’re the ones we choose to tend.
I am not always the perfect gardener, but I do enjoy tending to my garden and finding ways to nurture my flowers. Some days, they need more water. Some days, weeds need to be pulled. Others bloom brilliantly with a bit of fertilizing. Others will wilt because the environment isn’t right anymore.
I’ve also been the friend who didn’t show up well. And that’s given me grace for myself and others. Life gets busy, and we are all battling our own weeds in our gardens.
But this season has taught me how to show up for my friends. A text when something reminds me of them. A meme, a photo, a memory. A quiet thinking of you in the middle of a busy day.
Because friendship isn’t transactional. It’s sacred. But not always symmetrical.
And those flowers—those friendships—were exactly what I needed to make a beautiful bouquet.
