It's Messy

by Amanda de Cadenet

  When I was twenty-two, after my divorce from John, I moved into a little house in the Hollywood Hills with my daughter Atlanta and filled it with a petting zoo’s worth of bunnies, birds, cats, and dogs. Who doesn’t need all those emotional support creatures after a big breakup?

  Our new home was also filled with my newfound girlfriends. There was often someone sleeping on our couch or crashing in the guesthouse. When someone was in trouble, having a hard time, or in need of a safe place to go, they knew my home was the place they would be fed well and given a bed to sleep in, sometimes for months at a time. I loved having company, visitors to hang with and process the day’s trials and tribulations.

  It was during this time that I became friends with Tracy. She was an end-of-life at-home hospice worker who spent her days with people who were weeks away from dying. I had never met anyone with a job like hers, and I was fascinated by the endless stories about her patients and their lives. Tracy lived in my guesthouse for a year in exchange for babysitting Atlanta. She would come home at night and tell me stories about her incredible patients and the remarkable insights many of them experienced so close to death, what they wished they had done and said, as well as their regrets and loves. Having friends like Tracy, with completely different life experiences than I do, makes my life richer. Who wants to sit around a table with a bunch of people with the same opinions at the end of the day? I’ve learned the most from engaging with people who think completely differently from me—that’s where the real discoveries are possible.

  Every Sunday I held an informal open house, and my ladies and I would cook, laugh, and chat about everything, and I mean everything, going on in our lives. My home was an ongoing feminist sanctuary for a group of girls just trying to work it all out. Ten years later The Conversation was born out of those ongoing chats happening in my own living room.

  One of the biggest gifts of friendship is being able to witness my friends live their lives up close, through the celebrations as well as the hardships. I was often alone after my parents’ divorce. I had no one to help me learn how to navigate the world. I learned how to get through life by watching my friends. That, and reading autobiographies about women I admire and asking successful women a lot of questions about how they made it.

  When my friend Gwyneth separated from her then husband, I saw how it really was a choice to be kind and dignified during a separation, instead of behaving in a way that makes the experience harder on everyone, especially the kids. Watching Gwyneth and Chris co-parent like champions set a new normal for me, and for any of us who may one day separate. To see my friend work her ass off to reduce the potential trauma of divorce on her kids has been nothing less than profoundly inspirational. The woman deserves praise and immense credit, not criticism and mockery aimed at her for “consciously uncoupling.”

  My girl Brody Dalle and I have lived through similar traumas (details I won’t go into here) and understand each other without needing to say too much. We’re two peas in a pod, our brains and hearts sync up in both the best and sometimes worst ways. My youngest daughter Ella told me that she feels safe when she has sleepovers or playdates with Brody “because she reminds me of you.”

  I met both Amber H. and Amber V. whilst shooting these sweethearts for magazine stories. I call them my sister wives because we all look so similar.

  I became friends with Amber Heard when I photographed her for Allure about ten years ago. If I had a little sister, it would be her. I have lived through some super shitty times with her and lived to (NOT) tell the tale, if you know what I mean.

  My other Amber I met eighteen years ago, and from the moment we met, we fell in love and often joke that if one of us had a dick we would be set. Alas. Amber is one of the most consistent, reliable, and honest friends I have, and I can always trust she will tell me the truth without judgment, which is invaluable to me. I encourage you to have at least one friend who you know will tell you what’s REALLY up, not just what you want to hear.

  There are also many women I’ve met along the way in my recovery who helped put me back together in ways I could never have imagined. I’m trying to be mindful of the guidelines of my chosen recovery, but I will say that I am 100 percent the product of the many women I met in recovery who loved me unconditionally, taught me about the importance of self-reflection, accountability, friendship, trust, truth, and authenticity. They taught me that a crucial component of friendship is a willingness to be honest and vulnerable. There’s that word, vulnerable. Get to know it, get familiar with it, embrace it! Being vulnerable is the key to freedom and happiness (at least according to Brené Brown and me).

  My sanity was restored by women who did not judge me and showed me that there are thousands of us who have stories of abandonment, abuse, and addiction. Meeting others with the same damage as I had dismantled a belief system that somehow I was a bad person because I’d had to deal with a long list of scary life experiences. I also learned I didn’t need to feel shitty about what happened to me or about choices I made in the past. That kind of support is more than friendship; it is lifesaving.

  I consider myself a loyal friend, but sometimes friendships get just too toxic or plain crazy to hold on to; and at some point, you have to let go or you will end up getting dragged down. When I was learning how to have friendships, I always had one friend who was just bad news. The kind of girl who would try to fuck your boyfriend or spread a bunch of untruths about you, hoping to alienate you from your friend group. And I’ve had a couple of REALLY bad run-ins with that kind of girl. Those are people I avoid like the plague. I just don’t have the bandwidth for it—I barely have time to shower some days, so there’s no place in my life for that kind of crazy anymore.

  Not to say that sometimes really difficult things don’t come up within friendships, and I think, Shit, I don’t know if the relationship is going to be able to survive this. And sometimes they don’t. That’s the reality. And you have to separate, just like you would from a lover. It’s often no less heartbreaking. But for some reason we don’t treat the friend breakup with the same sensitivity and understanding. When someone is going through a friend-divorce, few people understand that it’s a major loss, the end of something that will never be again, and its own kind of death that you must allow yourself to grieve.

  So, how do you maintain these vital female friendships?

  Time

  One of the most valuable things you can give people is your time, and friendships require time and attention in order to flourish. As I got busier with my family and career, it became easy for my BFFs to fall pretty low on the priority list. Children, partners, work, and maintaining my own physical and mental health all come first, so making time to hang with one of my girls gets harder, but I do my best to find a way to make it happen as often as I can. And I don’t always succeed. Without time and attention, friendships, like baking cupcakes, can go horribly wrong. No matter how profoundly connected you think you are, when life gets beyond busy, making the smallest of efforts to stay in touch can go a long way. I have even been known to send a voice memo as a text, just to let my ladies know they are loved by me and I am thinking of them.

  Support

  Show up, however you can. Even for a quick hug!

  Actions really do speak louder than words. And there are times when one of your tribe will take a beating from life and you will be asked to step up to the figurative friend plate.

  Do whatever you can, and know it’s not going to last forever and that this is an opportunity to be the kind of friend you would want to have on your own support team.

  Be the friend you wish you had. That’s what I try to do, especially when someone is in a crisis.

  When the shit hits the fan, you really do know who your friends are. Like during a particular marriage crisis when I camped out for a week with the twins at Gwyneth’s house.

  I was such a mess, good for nothing except weeping endlessly and staring out the window, basically the worst houseguest ever. Sh
e had to take care of not only me, but also my kids, which she did with such love and compassion.

  Thanks to her excellent culinary skills, one miserable day I broke ten years of veganism by eating all the homemade sausages she was cooking for our kids’ dinner. It’s those special moments that stay with you and remind you who is truly by your side.

  Trust

  Never underestimate the importance of giving someone the gift of trust and safety.

  I pride myself on being trustworthy.

  Maybe because my life was exploited so harshly by the press when I was a teen, I know all too well what it feels like to have your trials and tribulations made public. Whether your personal biz is blasted all over social media, in the school yard, or in the tabloids, any violation of your privacy sucks bigtime. I try to never betray anyone’s confidence. That, to me, is the lowest of the low. On the occasions that I have accidentally let something slip, I am plagued by sleepless nights and disappointment in myself.

  Another golden rule: Never, and I mean NEVER ever, fuck a friend’s partner. I may have been a cheater in the past, but it was never with a friend’s dude. If anything, I go too far in the other direction, avoiding any hint of impropriety with my girlfriends’ partners. I think I border on rude sometimes, but I want to make sure there is not an ounce of confusion about whose friend I am. “I’m with HER not YOU.”

  Loyalty is something I pay close attention to in my friends. If they don’t pass the litmus test of “Will this person try to make a move on my hubby?” I keep them away from my family. They stay in the “social friends” circle, which means that the person is never coming to my kids’ birthday parties or a Strokes show or anywhere near my home.

  On the other hand, I have besties who if they were butt naked in my yard, I wouldn’t so much as blink. I know they would never cross the unspoken “don’t flirt with my hubby” rule.

  Honesty

  There will be times that friends do shit that horrifies you. And then what?

  A good girlfriend called me recently and said that she knew that I would be judgmental about what she was about to tell me, but she needed advice.

  And she was right.

  She confessed that she was having an affair with a guy who was married.

  “Does his wife know about this? Is this an open relationship?” I asked.

  My friend said the wife didn’t know. I asked whether she was going to continue the affair, and she got upset. “I knew that you would judge me about this,” she said.

  “I’m having a hard time with not having a judgment about this. But shit happens, and I’ll do my best to understand your point of view.”

  I was glad she called to talk, even though I wasn’t thrilled to hear her news. Supporting a friend doesn’t mean avoiding the truth because it might be hard for her to hear how you feel. Sometimes the most supportive thing you can do is be honest. She wouldn’t have wanted me to hide my reaction from her anyway—she knows, and anyone who knows me gets that I am incapable of hiding my feelings.

  My friends and I are straight up with each other, which I think is an essential part of an authentic friendship.

  I play a game we call “blind spots” with one of my besties. In the spirit of full disclosure, I say to her, “Tell me something I don’t see about myself.” And she tells me something about me that I can’t see, but that I need to know. Everything from “That dress you wear is not flattering on you,” to “You’ve been very overreactive lately.”

  Then we switch, and I tell her something I feel she needs to know. This type of sharing allows for extreme vulnerability, but I’ve learned some insightful things about myself I wouldn’t have given a thought to otherwise. Female friendships are a place to practice and fuck up, as well as grow and learn.

  Appreciation

  The hugest honor for me, and what allows for intimacy in friendships, is when you bear witness to someone’s life and allow them to bear witness to yours.

  I’ve witnessed the women I love struggle with addiction, fall in love and get married and divorced, get pregnant and miscarry and then give birth, have affairs both misguided and transformative. Land a great job, then lose it. Move to another country. Survive a health scare. I’ve seen them go through it, and in watching how they’ve navigated their lives, I have learned how to better navigate my own.

  When you’re friends with someone for decades, your roles in each other’s lives will evolve as your lives evolve. You take turns carrying each other through the really rough times. Any time a friend says to me, “I’m so sorry, I’m such a mess right now,” I always say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be my turn soon.”

  Because it has been and it will be again.

  11.

  Diets That Don’t Work but Do Give You a Bunch of Weird Health Problems (and Other Body Issues)

  A few years ago, Chelsea Handler asked me if I wanted to guest host her E! talk show Chelsea Lately while she was out of town. I was honored—as the only woman in late-night TV, Chelsea was a huge inspiration to me—so I wanted to say yes, but I was also mortified.

  “I can’t,” I told her. “I weigh two hundred pounds.”

  “You’re going to tell me you’re not going to do this because of how you look?” Chelsea was indignant. “You of all people? You can do this.”

  “I can’t go on TV looking like this.”

  “Yeah, you can,” she said. “You got this.”

  So I agreed to do it. On the day of the taping, I put on not one but two pairs of Spanx. It was like full-body Chinese foot-binding torture. I could hardly breathe, let alone talk.

  This is the time when you get to walk the talk, I thought. This is the time that you practice what you advocate for everybody else, which is that no matter what shape the outsides are in, confidence starts with how you feel about yourself on the INSIDE.

  That might sound like an oversimplification, but it’s the absolute truth. You can be your skinniest weight and dying of self-loathing, or you can be pretty fucking good with yourself when you’re two hundred pounds.

  I went out there and hosted Chelsea’s show with my head held high, and you know what? Even though I couldn’t really breathe, I killed it. I refused to let the number on the bathroom scale stop me from living. I’d let that happen too many times before, and I wouldn’t do it again, not when the stakes were so high. Showing up and saying yes for that opportunity allowed me to be reminded that I am capable of hosting a live late-night TV show, something I hadn’t done since I was eighteen. Stepping outside of my comfort zone in such a huge way reinforced the belief that I am not the sum total of my physical being and the number on the scale, even though the world would have me think otherwise.

  But for a long time, I did obsess about my body. In my own defense—in defense of all women—it’s no wonder we’re so caught up in our appearance. The fact is external feminine beauty is highly valued, and we are constantly given the message that a slamming body is the most valuable thing a woman can possess. The most beautiful girl in the room not only gets the guy, she lands the job, gets better service at a restaurant, rises through the social ranks before her friends. Doors open for the beautiful woman that may not for a female who is twice as smart but half as beautiful.

  I wish it weren’t true, but I have witnessed this phenomenon play out too many times to deny it. Of course, you don’t have to live by this belief system—God knows I try not to—but it’s important to understand the rules everyone else is playing by, especially if you want to win at the game of life. Or at least, give a wholehearted effort.

  From the ages of twelve to thirty-five my body, not my mind, was my primary currency. My ideas, my humor, my curiosity—none of those were valued as much as my body, which preceded me into almost every room.

  As a kid I trained to be an Olympic gymnast. My schedule was rigorous. Four hours a day, Monday through Saturday, I was at the gym. My body was like a boy’s, narrow hips, flat chested, wide shoulders. When I was twelve, I badly injured my an
kle and was forced to stop training immediately. It seemed like literally overnight I grew huge boobs and a gorgeous bubble butt. With no time to prepare for this new “me,” I was now responsible and accountable for a super curvy figure and had no idea how to handle the effect it had on the opposite sex.

  I continued to wear the same clothes as always—mostly T-shirts and overalls. But the changes to my body were plainly visible even in my tomboy attire. One day I was walking down a London street and passed a construction site. Some workers started whistling. I looked around to see who they were whistling at.

  “Want to show me your tits?” one of them shouted.

  Is this guy for real? I thought, What makes you think I would show you my boobs?

  The power my new body conferred was becoming impossible to ignore. At my boarding school, the required uniform was a shirt, tie, horribly unstylish skirt, and an extra-large sweater. I personalized it—shortening my skirt and shrinking my sweater until it had just the right fit. As if by magic, I could give my teacher a boner by sitting in the front row in my too-short skirt and too-tight schoolgirl sweater.

  I had become the teenage girl whose body made grown women uncomfortable and men salivate. Pretty much every man I came into contact with gave me the side-eye: teachers, cops, waiters and bartenders, shopkeepers, my friends’ boyfriends, and eventually their husbands. My body was the first thing that people responded to, and for a girl who felt largely invisible before then, I have to admit I was not upset about it at all.