What happens when the person who’s known you your whole life becomes your closest friend—and what does it take to actually get there?

This week I sit down with my sister Megan, the only person on earth who has seen every version of me—the awkward ones and the becoming ones—for a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for years. With a six-year age gap between us, we weren’t always close. We were siblings growing up in different worlds, and there were seasons where I wasn’t the sister I wanted to be. This is the honest story of how we found our way to real sisterhood and chose each other as friends in midlife.

We talk about the camp summer where Megan wanted into my inner circle and I was too caught up in my own world to see her, the slow burn of becoming actual friends through motherhood, a fight in Chicago I’m not proud of, and what sisters bring to friendship that nobody else can. We get into aging parents, sister‐in‐laws who became dear friends, staying close across distance when life has taken you in different directions, and the Yeah, No, For Sure lightning round—including whether Dad actually likes me better.

One of her answers surprised me. One made me emotional. And one involves Santa Claus, a boombox, and Amy Grant at Christmas.

This episode is for anyone who has a sister they love, a sister relationship that’s complicated, or has ever wondered whether the person who’s known you longest could also be the one who knows you best.

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Come share your stories of sisters!

My friend Alisa told me something completely matter‑of‑fact: “I suck at friendship.” Not apologetically. Not with shame. Just as a plain, true thing.

Alisa loves people. She’s a birth doula, amateur cattle rancher, and the woman who became my founder doula during the hardest years of building Pumpspotting. She listens in a way that makes you feel fully seen. She just has a very specific idea of what friendship actually means—someone you’d give a kidney to, someone who’d be in your delivery room—and by that definition, she feels like she’s failed more than she’s succeeded.

This conversation goes deep. We talk about the grief of losing friends you thought would be there forever, and looking honestly at your own part in those endings. About what friendship in your 50s feels like when you finally have time and you're choosing people with intention. About surviving the teenage daughter years to become friends on the other side. And at the end, Alisa tells me something I wasn't expecting: that I'm the first person she's ever done friendship differently with.

If you’ve ever lost someone you loved and wondered what your role was, or you’re in midlife craving friendships that are real and chosen and yours, this episode is for you. Stay with it all the way through; it only gets richer.

Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

Follow Your New Friend Alisa Marie:

The Mothership on Substack | Let's Talk Birthy | @LetsTalkBirthy

Alisa’s Friend Pick: The Besque Body Oil she’s gifting everyone she loves right now.

What happens when reality TV says no, but your friendship says yes and you build something impossible together anyway?

I sit down with Lindsey Witmer Collins, the brilliant software architect and tech founder who saw my Pumpspotting pitch deck and believed I’d succeed before we’d even met. We pitched to Gwyneth Paltrow and Will.i.am on a moving escalator for Apple TV’s Planet of the Apps, got all green lights, and still got rejected. So we drank tequila until 4 a.m., dreamed up the Breast Express, and spent the next few years proving everyone wrong by building a startup that changed the conversation around breastfeeding.

We talk about what it’s like when your app consultant becomes one of your soulmate friends, the isolation of being an inventor, and why our friendship survived when the business didn’t. We get into the serendipitous Costa Rica connection that brought us together, standing in that pitch circle refusing to back down, and the beautiful role reversal happening now where I support her dream of Scribbly Books after years of her holding me together on her couch.

This isn’t about perfect partnerships. It’s about startup friendships forged in fire - matching someone’s ambition, saying “let’s do it” instead of “are you sure?”, and building something that changes lives even when it doesn’t work out the way you planned.

For anyone building something impossible, wondering if friendships survive business failures, or looking for that one person who sees your vision before anyone else does.

Lindsey’s Friend Pick: Small dogs, sparkly OJS‑M nail polish from Olive & June, and Lake Pajamas.

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Follow Your New Friend Lindsey:

Scribbly Books | WLCM App Studio | Website

@ScribblyBooks | LinkedIn

What happens when a friendship hits a breaking point, and you choose to repair it instead of run?

I sit down with Holly Curtis—brilliant creative director, sauna companion, and the friend who answered the phone when I had my first panic attack in an orthodontist parking lot. Holly and I have been friends for a decade, we're on each other's emergency contact lists for literally everything, and we almost lost each other.

We talk about the Newport Folk Festival rupture, the midnight apology letter, and why we decided this friendship was worth fighting for. But we also get into matching metallic snowsuits through Covid fires, constantly lowering our expectations and being really excited when plans actually happen, and the Gilmore Girls vs. Parenthood debate.

This isn't about perfect friendship. It's about the messy, vulnerable, life-saving kind - the kind where you can call from a parking lot and someone says, "I can feel that you're not okay."

For anyone who’s ever almost lost a friend, wonders if deep friendship is still possible in midlife, or knows the feeling of calling someone, crying from a parking lot.

Follow Holly on Instagram.

Join the campfire → www.yeahnoforsure.com | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

Holly's Friend Pick: Wooden Spoon Magic Magnesium for better sleep (way better than another glass of rosé). Use code YEAHNOFORSURE for 10% off.

If you're in the messy middle of life craving friends who truly get you, welcome to the campfire.

I’m Amy VanHaren, and in this first episode, I share how friendship carried me through business collapse, perimenopause, and outgrowing old connections — and why I’m starting a show about the beautiful mess of showing up for your people.

In this episode, I talk about the loneliness epidemic, shifting seasons of friendship, and why now - more than ever - friendship deserves the mic.

This isn’t an advice show. It’s a campfire for women who love their friends and are still craving something more.

Join the conversation + community → www.yeahnoforsure.com | Instagram → @yeahnoforsure

This is the podcast that makes you want to text your people. Celebrating every season of friendship: the joy, the mess, the changing dynamics. Because without friends, life is f*cking lonely.

The friendship podcast you've been craving starts February 4. New episodes drop every Wednesday at 5:30am.

Hit subscribe. Text your people. Pull up a chair.

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