We Couldn't Have Known It Was Coming.

We couldn’t have known it was coming.

We couldn’t have known, back in our twenties when we were working jobs we hated, drawn together like magnets by pub quiz nights, gig nights, games nights and everything-in-between nights. Those days when we all had something to prove, putting our face on, serving up our best on a silver platter, only to spill our worst after too many sips. Somehow, it wasn’t enough to make anyone scatter.

We couldn’t have known when we organised charity events and fundraisers as an excuse to get together and party for a good cause. Future insurance for a day we couldn’t envision in our wildest nightmares.

We couldn’t have known as we found partners, bought houses, and started careers. The thought didn’t even flutter on the outskirts of our minds as we attended weddings and welcomed new tiny friends to join our gang of mismatched mates.

We couldn’t have known when life got busy and our responsibilities built barriers that stopped us from seeing each other as much as we used to. As much as we wanted to. Weekly turned monthly, turned quarterly, turned yearly. God bless the black hole between Christmas and New Year, when time would freeze. Chocolate and cheese were our fuel as we remembered that together was a melody of merriment we could never forget. Until we got busy and did.

We couldn’t have known when life started to throw us bullets we were unable to dodge. Bereavement, break-ups, and mental health battles, we tried to fight alone and failed. Bemused friends wanting to help but not knowing what to say, whether they should say, or maybe just stay? Words failed, but our camaraderie didn’t. Silent in the background of social media posts and gathered around pub tables for special birthdays. We were holding onto something, but we couldn’t name it.

We couldn’t have known, but when cancer came, we were jolted to action. The Avengers assembled, awoken from their stupor of the weekly routine that had clouded what it was all really for, what really mattered. Suddenly, after two decades, we could name it.

We weren’t friends, we were family.

Catch up coffees, weekly Waffle Wednesdays, evening walks, mates' holidays, summer BBQ’s, winter house parties, celebrating anything and everything because life is precious and fickle and messy. It’s not Instagram perfect or TikTok trending. It’s finding your people and loving them fiercely without hiding your feelings in a box of social acceptance. Because that kind of love is contagious, unconditional and medicine for body and soul. It outlasts any storm and emboldens any heart.

We couldn’t have known it was coming. But I’m grateful that it did.