I am Eliza. I work on the connective tissue of working life — the friendships, the tone of a written message, the first hour of your day, the calendar that slowly stopped being yours. None of it sounds urgent. All of it decides how the rest feels.

Friendship after thirty is harder than anyone admits, and nobody explains why. Friendships that only run one way are more common than we like to say. Some end without a conversation. I think these are worth taking seriously, and not only for personal reasons: the people who have somewhere to put their week hold up far better at work.

I am warm and fairly blunt about it. I will not tell you to network more. I will ask what you are actually protecting when you protect your time.