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Emily Liebert’s You Knew Me When

Once you’ve left, can you ever, really go home again? Emily Liebert attempts to answer these questions and others in her debut novel, You Knew Me When, a story about best friends, loves, and what happens when life gets in the way.

Katherine left home 12 years ago to pursue a career in the beauty industry. It had been a tough decision for her, leaving her best friend Laney and her boyfriend Grant behind, but it had been a once in a lifetime opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. All these years later, she is a top executive for one of the biggest cosmetic companies in the world, but she never heard from Laney or Grant again. Now, at the passing of an old friend and mother figure, Katherine is forced to go back to the ones she left behind and confront the issues of years past. Will their old bond be able to break through the wall that was built up between them, or is it simply just too late?

Are there some relationships that are strong enough to get passed years of hurt and regret? Can the bond of former best friends be tied back together once it’s been cut? They are questions that we’ve all wondered about at one point or another in our lives and ones that come up again and again in You Knew Me When. Our former best friends, people that we were once inseparable from, people that we now look back on with a mix of fondness and longing. Kind of like the one who got away but sans the romantic entanglement. What if you took a leap in a direction that your best friend couldn’t understand and ended up losing them in the process? Would you bury the longing in your heart and continue moving forward, or would you try everything in your power to get that friendship back?

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To Friendship, Old & New – Your Anchors

There’s something about being around friends who have known you since your adolescent days, even if you only see each other every month or so. These lifelong friends understand you like no other because they’ve experienced more with you than most would ever be able to fully understand. They’ve talked you off a ledge more times than you can count, stayed up nights in endless phone conversations and know when you do and don’t want to talk about whatever is bothering you. They might not know your day-to-day activities, but they know your core, and that’s something that will never change.

Then, there are your new friends, those that know your past only from what you’ve told them, but that experience your present with you. Even if it’s something as silly as walking in the opposite direction of where you’re headed to get late-afternoon lattes, or stopping by just to hand you a plate of food because you didn’t end up making it over for dinner the night before. Someone who texts you good morning and goodnight, and every minute in-between, because you can’t bear not speaking.

This weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a good cross section of these such friends, from some of the oldest bonding over music (New Beard, look them up seriously, my friends are awesome), grilled cheese and memories, to the newest, late afternoon shopping/dinner, to others equally as important. I may not see everyone that I care about due to busy schedules or the mere fact that they have slipped away for the time being, but, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that these things are often temporary, and your true friends, the ones who can look into your eyes and see your sole, will always come back to you. They are your anchors.

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Amy Hatvany’s Safe With Me

In Amy Hatvany’s new novel, Safe With Me, published in March by Washington Square Press, she weaves a tale of abuse, loss and unconditional love through three distinct alternating narrations of two women and one teenager, who are connected long before they meet.

It had been nearly a year since Hannah Scott lost her daughter as she was biking out of their driveway and hit by a car. Since then, she threw herself into her work, opening up a second hair salon and moving into an apartment above it, trying to pick up the pieces when all the while she’s still devastated by it. It’s not until a new friend walks into her life (and her salon) with a connection to her daughter that she is finally able to face the situation and start healing.

Olivia Bell has lived her life in fear for a long time, fearful of her husband’s sometimes abusive tendencies, and fearful of her daughter Maddie’s struggling health, which, after an organ transplant a year earlier is finally improving enough that she can return to school. It is when Olivia picks Maddie up on her first day back in tears that she decides to make her daughter feel better…by taking her to the grand opening of a new hair salon in town. Little do they know that their trip to Hannah’s salon will change their lives forever.

At the heart of this novel lies the concept of the power of emotions and how strongly they can affect us, sometimes without us even knowing it. Hatvany makes us take a look at our own lives and relationships, past the ideals, past the rose-colored glasses, and allows us to see them for what they really are (were).

“We try on personalities like second skins, learning to present only the best versions of ourselves to the world, fearful of what might happen if we reveal just how imperfect and vulnerable we really are. But it’s these imperfections…these struggles, that truly connect us.”

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Friends Forever?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship.  How can you tell the difference between a good friend and a bad one?  The ones that will last forever versus the ones that are for right now or have already expired? 

I’m not sure if there is a right answer for this because everyone is different – every friendship is different – but I feel like it is simpler than it seems.  Your friends are people who are there for you.  Period.  How they, themselves can express that, or how they choose to, is another story.  There may be circumstances that are beyond their control, ones that physically limit their roles in your life. 

There are a few people that I can think of who fit into this category; one being my friend John.  He and I have known each other for over half of our lives.  For a long time, he was my go-to for advice – both personal and about guys.  I didn’t always like what he had to say, but a lot of the time he was right (okay, most of the time).  He’s in the army so there are long stretches where I don’t hear from him, but that doesn’t make him any less of a friend.  Thank goodness I have branched-out a bit, or who knows where I’d be.  It also helps that I have a boyfriend that I can talk to about anything, one who actually listens to me, doesn’t judge me and won’t hesitate to tell me when I’m wrong or right.

Then there are the other kind of friends, the ones that are only around when it is convenient for them, ones that are there for the positive things but avoid the negatives.  I’ve had friends like these, and I think everyone has.  Sometimes it takes a while to recognize the signs, but once you see them, there really is no sense to ignore.  Your friends don’t all have to be your best friends for them to count.  You can have bus friends, shopping friends, coffee friends, yoga friends…the list is endless really.  Just because they may not all have a significant role in your life doesn’t mean they are bad friends.  The bad ones are the ones that don’t act like friends, the ones that you need to let go of.  Originally, I had started this post towards the end of January, after a huge fight with someone who was supposed to be a good friend.  I had been in her wedding party, attended her child’s christening, even hosted her and her then two-year-old in my very un-baby friendly apartment (yes, things were broken and my only set of house-keys was lost temporarily).  The fight was on-going, spanning over a month, and really unnecessary, but too many words were said that could not be taken back.  I had been there for her when she needed me, but the one time that I could not adhere to something, she couldn’t handle it; the fact that I had tried to be accommodating didn’t matter.  It was upsetting to lose her as a friend, but in the end it was the only decision to be made.

I believe that everyone enters your life for a reason, to teach you a lesson that you would otherwise not have learned.  Some people will leave your life after you learn those lessons and some will continue onward with you on your journey, be there with you for the good times and the bad, as you close chapters in your life and start new ones.  There are some friends that I have had forever, that I’ll always keep a special place for in my heart no matter the distance that grows between us, and some that will fade away into the night and become past memories.  Friendships do not have to last forever to be good, but they have to be true friends to last forever.