Friendship and how I can't have me without you

When posed the task of writing about friendship, the assumption I made was that it’d all be about just how great my friends are and all the ways in which they make the world a better place. But what I found was that it’s hard to discuss friendship without mostly discussing yourself. Which feels very counterintuitive and bordering on self-indulgent. But the truth is, it’s impossible to understand friendship unless viewed through the lens of the highs and the lows and all the bits in between of one’s own life.

Now in my 40s, I’ve had friends and been a friend (I hope) through all the major life moments. Through weddings and divorce; through births and abortions; through multiple jobs, promotions and firings; through travels round this earth and staying in the same place for years in various houses, flats and eventually homes; through wild nights that we thought would last forever when life was just getting started and the countless mornings after which definitely get worse the older you get.

I think of friendships that were invaluable during the best and worst times of my life, but which no longer factor into it anymore. Best friends during fleeting yet seminal moments who now walk past each other in the street as if strangers, because neither of us quite know how to say hello anymore after such a long time of not. And although it hurts a bit and I feel guilty and unsure about whether you or I did something wrong, I know that it’s okay and I don’t blame either of us and I hope you don’t too, because sometimes that’s just how friendship is. Even the shit friends have taught me something worthwhile. As we partnered up for the dance of that ill-fated friendship we made together and the regretful way in which it ended, it still taught me about life and love and forgiveness and myself and was still a friendship that mattered, as each and every one should. No matter how small or big, no matter how amicable or messy it came to pass – each friendship has led to this point which, at 45, feels like a good place to be.

A place where the discussions with friends are no longer just about the people we fancy and who we’re sleeping with, but are finally about our lives and our views and how we can change things and travel this road together better. Friends that I’ve had for years who I now speak deeply and honestly with when we’re sober instead of being three hours of drunk before we’re bold enough to say the quiet bits out loud. And how the beauty of that has taught me to have conversations with lesser-known people that are deeper and more truthful than I can ever remember them being. And how I am less cautious about who I reach out to when I feel that impulse you get when you meet someone that you know you will learn from, in whatever way that ends up being.

It’s often said that the only two things you can be sure of in life are death and taxes, but I would argue that friendship should be one of the two. And when I think on it, it’s in death and not taxes that I have never been more sure of anything in this world than friendship. For in amongst the pain and the confusion and the recognising that nothing will ever be the same again, it’s the strength of friendship that reminds me that things won't always be like this. That there will be life beyond this grief and all the versions of it I have experienced. Without friendship I can’t see how you can ever get back to that point or have even known what that point was in the first place.

For that point is the arms that held you up when your heart broke and your legs gave way. It’s the spark from a memory of time spent with a friend that comes to you in those darkest moments when you can’t see a way forward. It’s the words in the message received out of the blue that lifts you for a few seconds when you thought the day would only weigh heavy. It’s the ‘saw this and thought of you’ gift that only friends know to buy. It’s the offering to cancel your haircut without being asked because you know instinctively that you need to be with your friend today. It’s the selfie of the tops of your heads because you can’t stop laughing long enough to get a good photo. It’s the birthday card to my dad on his 80th birthday from his friend he’s known since they were in primary school that says, ‘never ever give up’. And most of all it’s knowing that you can’t possibly write about friendship without talking about yourself because you know that the best bits of you are learned from them and you can never be your complete self without friendship to make you whole.