you know I mean like on Christmas Eve I would always be at a friend's house for a gathering rather than being at an aunt and uncles or grandparents home.

So I think that was part of it is nobody had extended family and so

friendships were it was all you had in terms of relationships. So you had you know and I've placed

a really high value on friendship my entire life because of that because of growing up somewhere and not that we weren't close to our family we really were we very very close to our grandparents growing, even though we didn't see them very frequently.

But I've always been this person who thought that,

and still does, who thinks that my friendships

are on an equal level to family, not like somehow below it. I'm Laura Tremaine and I have 10 things to tell you and you have 10 things to tell. This show is about connection with each other and with

ourselves and the hope is that the things we talk about here be fuel for better

conversations and a personal awareness.

Each episode has a prompt or a topic that I want you to take to your journal, text to a friend,

or share on social media using the hashtag 10 things to tell you.

This is a show about digging deeper and sharing our stuff.

I'll go first.

In celebration of the launch of my new book, The Life Council, 10 Friends Every Woman Needs,

we are continuing my Friendship Stories series.

As a reminder last year when I was writing the Life Council I did dozens of interviews as part of my research with people who had unique friendship stories.

I'm featuring some of these stories here on the podcast to highlight all the different perspectives

we can have around friendship, which is one of the main messages of the Life Council.

Today we're going to hear about a very unique childhood experience and the equally unique friendships it fostered.

My guest, Cammie, grew up on a two square mile remote island where friendships were very important because they were everything.

People couldn't visit the island and residents only went back to the states once a year.

There was no real phone reception or television service on the island either.

...