The Joy of Showing Up
Weekend Reads v. 25.1.2026
The corner of the world I call home has been braced for snow – and lots of it – for a week. Cancellation is as much a part of preparations for these types of storms as is panic buying milk and bread. So it would have made perfect sense for my husband and me to cancel our trip out west to celebrate a childhood friend’s milestone birthday. But seeing as I’m the woman who drove through a snow storm to meet her friend’s infant twins, cancelling this trip was not an idea that entered my mind. Instead, we changed our flights to allow us to celebrate and race a winter storm across the country.
Our celebratory weekend was be held in a town nestled high up in the Rocky Mountains. The drive from the airport to our destination was gorgeous. As I watched the jagged contours of the Rocky Mountains from the car window, I thought about how increasingly rare it is for people to simply show up for one another – let alone endure any bit of hardship to do so.
I suppose this “cancel culture” is tethered to the fact that modern life tricks us into believing we are quite large and comfortable in our lives. We are able to instantly order our days and backfill our needs. Those mammoth rocks reminded me that all of us in this great big world are all, in fact, quite small and quite similar to one another. I was filled with a sense of wonder as I thought of all the people who’d come before me to this place and felt the same sense of smallness and fragility. The vastness of that landscape allowed my perspective to shift so that I could see my burdens were mostly self imposed and trivial. The mountains stood before me as a testament to the fact that the biggest things in life cannot be controlled by technology or solved by the borrowed power of politics. No, what I saw before me was a harsh environment where the whistling wind could throw boulders onto the gold-rush town below or a hungry bear could overturn a campsite in an instant.
As we climbed higher and higher up into those ragged mountains, I thought about how the harshness of life fuels our ordinary moments with peace and contentment. And I thought back on the flurry of essays I’d read in recent days about showing up for others in their times of joy and times of need despite a current culture that entices us to choose self over others. To quietly cancel instead of showing up.
If we can all agree that life can be hard and difficult, why have we become so quick to find reasons to excuse ourselves from celebrating the joys in the lives of others?
The opinion piece that spawned the theory “Always Go to the Funeral” touches on this question but in an obligatory and self-focused way. “‘Always go to the funeral’ means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to.”
I regret to inform that author that the joys of life are not catalogued in columns of “don’t really have to” and “definitely don’t want to.” No, the joys of life are framed by moments when we look past ourselves to connect with others in the midst of whatever storms life throws our way. The joys of life are celebrated alongside those who matter to us – and us to them. The joys of life involve being seen and known.
In my view, the funeral-theory author falls short of identifying the greater lesson to be learned and gift to be gained by showing up in the lives of others. The author of this essay, however, articulates the root cause of why we indulge in cancellations to ignore our privilege to “go where you’re invited.”
In short, a glut of flakiness appears to have fallen upon modern society.
“The brunch-that-never-was came to mind when I watched a video with therapist Esther Perel. She spoke about the rising incidence of people cancelling events at the last minute, with various excuses (some good, some lame) for why they can’t attend. Perel described a woman who prepared brunch for six friends, only to have five bail an hour before it was scheduled to start.
There are more than 1,000 comments on her video, many offering heartwrenching examples of similar experiences. One woman described her bridal shower, where a friend’s grandmother prepared an elaborate celebration, but 19 guests cancelled the day of. Only one showed up. The woman said it was embarrassing and dehumanizing.
Another described a Halloween party that she spent days planning. It cost a lot to buy the food, decorations, and cocktail mix, then only three out of 12 people showed up. “I felt unimportant,” the woman wrote. She stopped hosting events.
One commenter said a friend cancelled by text 40 minutes before she was supposed to arrive, saying she ‘didn’t want to wake her husband up from a nap.’
I could go on and on with more examples, not just from Perel’s post, which clearly hit a nerve, but also from my own experiences. It appears we’re living in a time when people don’t hesitate to bail on their friends for reasons that range from justifiable to absurd.
This reveals an appalling lack of etiquette that gives zero consideration to what it takes to host an event of any kind. If someone never hosts, then it might be understandable that they don’t grasp the effort that goes into it, but surely they can gauge the human impact. No one likes to feel rejected or sidelined, and turning down an event invitation at the last minute feels incredibly hurtful to any host. It essentially says, ‘You don’t matter enough for me to show up.’” (Source)
I pondered these two perspectives as our rented sedan made its way to a ski town stretched out under giant mountains. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment as I recalled times I’d chosen to be selfish instead of simply showing up as we climbed out of the valley via switchback turns under a soft grey sky. And I remembered the immense joy I felt when friends turned up for my milestones as we turned onto the neighborhood street where we would soon greet our dear friends who’d invited us to celebrate with them.
Like so many things in life, that big winter storm was more hype than snow. Small flecks of sleet are raining down now as I drink my favorite tea from Australia while I sit under my favorite Irish wool blanket and write to you before getting back to devouring The Bee Sting by an Irish novelist. The modern world and all her conveniences are something amazing, aren’t they?
Sometimes you can’t be there in person. I’ve found one of the absolute best ways to show you care from afar is sending flowers or a small plant. Urban Stems is my go-to, and they’ve yet to let me down. The selection is fantastic, they ship all over, and their customer service is top notch. Here’s a link for $25 off your first order if you are looking to tell someone you’re thinking about them.
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Have you heard about the guy biking his way to Japan from the Arctic Ocean via the Americas, Africa, Russia, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and Iran?? Incredibly inspiring stuff. His Instagram feels like the sort of content social media was created for. I stumbled across his story via the Sunday Desk column by It’s Meseidy:
“Here’s what gets me: this isn’t some polished travel influencer content. Some nights he’s in a hotel. Many nights, he’s taken in by strangers, families who don’t speak his language but feed him anyway. And some nights? He’s camping in abandoned buildings, alone with his thoughts and whatever wildlife decided to claim the place first.” (Source)
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Hope it’s cozy wherever you are this week.
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