I’m Jealous of Oprah (It’s Not What You Think)
January 24, 2012
by Kim Childs, CPPC
Oprah Winfrey and I celebrate our birthdays just a few days apart. She has zillions in the bank and can spend her special day anywhere on the planet with 200 of her favorite people in tow. I have, well, less money in the bank and often spend my birthdays with a handful of friends in or around my neighborhood. But Oprah’s incredible wealth, access and adventures are not what make me jealous of her.
Nope, it’s the fact that she has a best friend named Gayle King whom she calls every day. From what I can tell, Gayle and Oprah do pretty much every meaningful thing together and rehash it on the phone.
I often wish I had a Gayle King.

As a little girl, I lived next door to my best friend Lisa. We hung out in each other’s homes making Easy Bake Oven cakes, watching Mr. Rogers, and playing dress up. We also spent hours setting up elaborate apartment complexes for Barbie, Ken, assorted doll friends, and my brother’s GI Joe (for added intrigue). Often, just as we put the last piece of cardboard furniture in place, one of our moms would disrupt the whole scene by shouting, “Dinner!” We didn’t really care, though, because we just loved being together.
A few years later, my dad moved our family to another state and I tearfully said goodbye to Lisa. Little did I know that it was the beginning of a pattern.
At this point in my life I’ve moved about eight times and moved on from several jobs, leaving countless friends and communities behind. I tried to stay connected to high school and college friends, but those ties weakened as our careers and lives blossomed in different cities. In my 30s I lived my own version of Sex and the City with gal pals Julie, Alice, and Liz amid cocktails, cigarettes and debauched nights in Manhattan. When that lifestyle took its toll, I left my party pals to reclaim my soul in a yoga ashram. Two years later I moved to Boston.
And so it went for decades, these departures that left me with dear friends in faraway places. I, too, have been left behind by girlfriends who’ve been called elsewhere. Despite our good intentions, months and years can pass without a call or visit, and so Facebook is where we end up hanging out. I have 600 friends on Facebook and, while they give me a much-needed sense of community at times, I’d trade most of them for a nearby BFF.
Which is why I’m in awe of Oprah and Gayle who, after three decades, seem closer than sisters (something else I don’t have). I’d love regular check-ins with a girlfriend like that to relay the fascinating details of my fascinating life. I used to pay my therapist for this privilege and now I force my husband to listen, but it’s really not his forte. While he’s loving and devoted and willingly does the dishes, he rarely asks about the right details or wants to hear about my feeelings the way girlfriends do.
People like John Gray warned me about the whole Mars/Venus thing.
A friend of mine jokes that she processes her day with her cats each night. While my cat is a really good listener, she rarely gives feedback, poses leading questions or affirms my fabulousness. Except when she wants something.
I know that I’m not unique in wanting more meaningful and consistent relationships in my life, and I sometimes wonder if loneliness is an American epidemic, despite all the tweeting and texting. A yoga student of mine confesses that her loneliness sends her to the kitchen for beloved companions like Godiva chocolates and Ben and Jerry. The problem is, they don’t really love her back.
My husband is from Senegal, where people hang out together all the time and steady human companionship is a given. His favorite American TV show is Seinfeld, because Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer remind him of his mates back home and make him laugh after a day of commuting and working alongside New Englanders who avoid eye contact.
“I’m used to it,” he says, about the isolation he feels in this culture, and that makes me sad.
It takes real effort and determination to maintain friendships in this age of transience, social fragmentation, and over committed lives.
Proximity helps, too.
As I write I’m heating up a pot of homemade lentil soup, thanks to my neighbor Ellen, who supplied the recipe after I enjoyed some at her house. Ellen and I are cultivating a friendship via email, Facebook, phone calls and, yes, face-to-face visits, and “Hey, got any bay leaves?” moments across the fence. It’s the perfect fusion of modern and old-fashioned relating, and it makes my world feel cozier.
I just hope neither one of us moves anytime soon.
Kim Childs, CPPC, is a Certified Life and Career Coach specializing in Positive Psychology, Creativity, and Midlife Transitions. Click here to learn more and schedule an initial consultation.
11 Comments
Isabel Phillips
January 24, 2012
Kim –
I love reading your ramblings and so much of this essay resonates with me as a transplanted southerner to New England. My upbringing was so misaligned with my soul’s purpose that I do not really feel like I have roots in the south, but I too had a dear friend named Lisa as a child and lost contact with her long ago. We actually “found” each other 45 years later on Facebook and held a two-person family reunion in Florida last year! And I too have marveled at Oprah’s description of her longstanding best-friendship with Gayle, and have yearned for somebody like that to be in my corner. Then. like you, I look around, and see that I am discovering deep friendships in unexpected places because I have finally been in one place (Boston) for long enough (30 years) to have grown myself in garden patches with fellow spiritual seekers. Hold on to Ellen and keep on “rambling” my friend. You have befriended so many of us through your Artist’s Way or Yoga classes or blogs and we are all unraveling toward’s Enlightenment together!
xxxxooo Isabel
judith Austen
January 24, 2012
Kim,
I hear and know what you are saying. However, I think it helps to remember that we in the West are privileged to live many lifetimes in one life. this entails many friendships for different phases of our lives and not necessarily a “one” Lisa. I do have someone like that in my life, a friend since 7th grade and I cherish her because of the shared history (and deep mutual aesthetic) and her being she is the one person I an let-down with on all levels. However, I have friends for other aspects of my life: professional, reading life, writing life and so on. I am a great believer in “partializing” and not expecting the big picture in one person. It is how I’ve coped with the many phases of my life, the moves, the changes, and managed them with some loneliness at times and then some new connectedness.
Your fan,
—Judith
Julia Flynn
January 24, 2012
OOOOohhhhh! This is so sweet. Please know I look forward to seeing your blogs in my email. Call anytime to cultivate a nearby friendship. I’ll be your Gayle, if you will be mine!!!!
Maria Elena
January 24, 2012
If you and I lived in the same city, we’d be “sisters of the heart” for sure! My hubby of 24 years has to listen to my hashing…he’s not the best at it, either–doesn’t seem to retain much, ha! Still missing you after all these years, ME
Cynthia
January 24, 2012
Beautifully written. I love the last line.
Claudette
January 25, 2012
So well put. I understand and share some the same circumstances. It was lovely to have shared a brief part of your life too.
Fiona Robertson
January 25, 2012
Hi Kim
Surprise!!
We’ll always be friends.
Your Scottish yoga centre buddy!
Come visit if you like.
xx Fiona
Ellen
January 26, 2012
I am not leaving anytime soon, BFF! I too, hope YOU stay put.
Lisa
January 26, 2012
Hello from your old BFF, Lisa. I love the essay and love the fact that it has re-connected us. I do think there are many kinds of friendships through our lives and all have value. But the close human contact a nearby friend offers is not always easy to come by and needs to be nurtured. My friendship needs have changed over the years from childhood, to college buddies, to other parents and co-workers and my time spent with friends is much less at this time of my life. I do think that will change again, though when the kids are grown and life is less hectic. And I have to say my husband and I are pretty good friends!
Michele
January 27, 2012
Oh, I do hope you find this in your life. Reading this makes me remember to appreciate the long time friends I do have in close proximity. While I have often longed to “go west”, an underlying fear I have is losing connection with some friends I have had for many many years. Thank you for the post.
Linda Guttman
February 7, 2012
Kim, This is just so wonderful. When I grew up in CT in the 50’s I had few friends because I was the only Jewish girl in school. And those differences just dictated so much. I only had one person I would call a friend and he now lives in Santa Fe with his partner. We have reconnected over the years and I’ve even gone out there to visit him. When I was a kid, I cursed the situation. But it was good because it made me strong and independent and prepared me for the life I have now. So many friends and communities of which I am a part. Thanks again for your wonderful posts.