Normal Gets You Nowhere by Kelly Cutrone (ereader for android .txt) 📕

in this world. He’s not the type to cry wolf, so without hesitating, I split from a business meeting to run down the street to hug him like a child. He told me that I was the only person in the world he wanted to see in that moment. Four days later, I was hanging at a bar with a friend when he texted me again, asking where I was. When I told him, he showed up with two young girls. This was nothing unusual; being handsome and rich, he’s always surrounded by women volunteering to be his wife.

But on this night I was hanging out with a coworker and knew I wasn’t in a place to receive these girls. Despite what people may think, at night I really just want to be peaceful, and the last thing I want to talk about is fashion. I’m surrounded for fourteen hours a day by young women, with three phone calls in progress at all times, running from meeting to meeting.

“Do not bring these chicks to our table,” I told my friend.

Of course, he ignored me. Soon we were listening to some twenty-two-year-old patter on about how she used to be a model. “Listen,” I said. “What kind of model are you?” Let’s just say it all went downhill from there. This is why I really recommend you try to stay as conscious as possible—to limit the amount of apology time you have to set aside in your life.

The next day, I called my friend to say I was sorry. I mean, why was I picking on a twenty-two-year-old? It just wasn’t nice, and I was not proud of my behavior. Instead of blowing up at me, my friend simply said, “You’re so amazing. But the person I called for help last week was not the being I was experiencing last night. I just think you’re just really overwhelmed, and I’m worried about you.”

It’s not easy to forgive and move on when you feel hurt or confused by a friend. But offering forgiveness with a heart full of understanding rather than a fist full of resentment is one of the most amazing things you can do for someone—and for yourself.

The meaning of forgiveness has been confused in our culture. It doesn’t mean, “I agree with you,” or even “I like what you did,” or “You didn’t hurt me.” It means, “I recognize in you the human being in me, and therefore I understand how this happened and I’m willing to move forward in my relationship with you. I’d also like to talk about why this happened or is happening, and what I can do to help you.” I’ve had young women in my office who have done something stupid—obviously out of real personal pain—and instead of firing them, I’ve taken it upon myself to grow closer to them and help them through whatever is holding them back. I’m not saying these people are necessarily in my No Matter What Club. But I do believe we all need help at certain points in our lives, and we appreciate small acts of kindness and understanding.

Once you’ve made vows of lasting friendship, I hope you’ll stand by your friends no matter what they do. Maybe you should even put it in writing, like old-fashioned marriage vows (without the sex):

Do you vow to keep _______ as your friend no matter what, even if she makes a fool of herself in the middle of the night? If you see her escalating, do you promise to go toward her and offer her meditative practices or bring her ice cream? Will you love her when she is not loving you or herself?

If you want your friends to be more forgiving of you, you’re going to need to be more forgiving of them, and more helpful. You can also use these opportunities to evolve and grow closer.

I’m not saying we should tolerate unacceptable behavior from everyone or that our No Matter What Club should be a codependent free-for-all bazaar. You have to have boundaries. I don’t want anyone to be stuck in a dangerous or violent situation. But we also need to be very careful that we don’t use the DSM-V*—a nasty little book that psychologists use to diagnose mental illness (by checking symptoms like “suffers from delusions of grandeur; dry mouth; believes in crop circles”—I mean, this could be any of us on a bad day!)—as a shield to protect us from our own slothlike responses to loved ones in our own community.

If your friend is a drug addict, being abused by her boyfriend, or struggling with an eating disorder, you need to at least sit her down in a quiet and loving manner and say, “I am worried about you. I want to help.” If you don’t—and you might not want to hear this—I believe you’ve contributed to her downfall, since it was inconvenient for you and you just couldn’t deal. I’m not saying any of us can single-handedly cure anyone of drug addiction or anorexia. But I will tell you one thing:

The truth is one of the most powerful vehicles ever driven by humanity. An arrow shot into a diseased heart can perform a world of wonders.

Even if you need to take your physical distance, I hope you’ll stay invested, praying and meditating daily for your loved one—and for everyone else in the world who’s suffering while you’re at it. In my twenties, when my drug use was spiraling out of control, I coined the phrase, “Duck, here comes my best friend!” (I was on mushrooms and with David Lee Roth at the time. FYI, mushrooms in New York clubs are not a good idea.) You know you’re in a bit of trouble when you start avoiding the people who love you most. Years later, after I’d met The Mother and cleaned up, I was thrilled to run into an old friend from those days on the Lower East Side. I hadn’t seen him in years, and