A Vacancy for a Friend

When we are children, making friends comes so naturally. You are sitting in the sandbox, digging with your little shovel, completely absorbed in your own world — until you suddenly notice another girl sitting beside you. At some point, you start building something together… and just like that, a friendship is born.

Perhaps she is still your friend today.

Or maybe, in kindergarten, a teacher simply placed you next to each other at the same table — perhaps because of your height, perhaps because of some other practical reason — and that small decision brought your friend into your life. She appeared beside you… and she stayed. Or maybe she didn’t.

Sometimes we grieve the people who have left. The connection suddenly disappears, or perhaps it slowly fades away. You no longer have as many shared conversations, your worlds begin to move in different directions, and you find yourself wondering: What happened?

Sometimes there is even a feeling of betrayal or abandonment. You look back with tenderness at the “good old days” and miss what once was.

And yet, the truth is that people coming into and leaving our lives is not unnatural.

There is no one to blame. We are all constantly changing, growing, and evolving. Our circumstances shift, our values transform, our interests expand. Unless you and your childhood friend are walking the same path in life, it is completely natural that your connection may become more distant or even come to an end. You simply become different versions of yourselves. You grow into women with new experiences, new dreams, and new perspectives — and that is okay.

If you have travelled the world, built a career, entered a partnership, become a mother, or simply followed a different path, you are no longer the same person you were back then.

You have grown beyond your “old self.”

I meet many women in Women’s Circles, and the topic of not having a close female friend comes up surprisingly often. The question is always the same: How do we meet someone new and create a meaningful friendship as adults?

Well… we need to look around in our current sandbox. Seriously — it is the same way it happened in kindergarten. Who is sitting at my table now?

Look around you. Look at the places where you already are, where you follow your interests and passions. Do you attend pottery classes? The women there may be beautiful potential friends waiting to be discovered.

Perhaps you have a child in kindergarten and you are currently a stay-at-home mother. Take a closer look at the other mothers in your group. Invite one for coffee. Then another. Maybe something will click.

Do you attend Women’s Circles? Who sat beside you? Listen closely to what she shares, what matters to her, what lights her up. The chances are high that someone there is walking a path similar to yours.

Take a look through your social media profiles and reconnect with old acquaintances. Perhaps someone from your past is now much closer to your current energy, your values, and the woman you have become.

I want to encourage you to actively search for friendship.

I have a new friend who I met through a Women’s Circle. We left the Circle at 10 p.m. and ended up standing by a rubbish bin in Saska Kępa, talking until midnight because we simply could not stop sharing. Eventually, she looked at me and said:

“Listen, I have a vacancy for a friend. I recently lost a few friendships, and I’m looking for someone new. Are you interested?”

It was such a beautiful, simple, and open question. And the only answer I could give was: “Yes.” Because she is an extraordinary woman.

A Women’s Circle is a unique space for meeting other women. It allows us to see into each other’s hearts and souls. Here, we often meet someone beyond the surface — beyond roles, achievements, and everyday masks.

Sometimes I feel that with people we have known for years, we do not reach the depth that we can sometimes experience with women we have just met in a Circle. And that is exactly why it is such a powerful place to find a soul friend — a companion for your journey, someone who walks beside you on levels far deeper than the material world.

These are the relationships that nourish the heart. These are the connections that feed the soul.