Where is love? You might ask. Is it found in grand gestures? Romantic getaways, dinner dates, flowers, gifts, all those things. What if the truest and purest forms of love can be found in friendships? Organically forged from seeds planted and cultivated over years and decades of memories. Here’s a true story of how I met my best friend.
Picture the scene: it’s 2001 and the setting is Glasgow University. I played oboe in the Wind Band, and some part of my radiating positivity (or overzealous keenness and tragic desperation to make pals) led me to being co-opted onto the committee for the Music Society. I sit at my first meeting completely unsure about:
1. What I’m doing here
2. How I’ve got myself in this position
But, thankfully, I recognise someone in the room looking pretty much as terrified as I am - it’s the bassoon player from the Wind Band, Yvonne, who’s a first-year student too.
As much as I don’t remember the content of that meeting, the following chats, exchanging of phone numbers, even the first time we went out socially together, I do know that this is where I found true love in friendship. There hasn’t been a notable life event from that point on that did not explicitly include my pal.
Houses
Engagements
Weddings
Babies
Life stuff - some good, some difficult
We’ve been through it all - together.
Although the distance these days is somewhat more than a few tenement blocks in Glasgow, mad nights out at The Garage have been replaced with cups of tea and a very occasional glass of cava and our conversations are found in stolen moments on the run to the shops, often interrupted by kids, husbands and pets, things remain much the same.
There’s an excitement in a ‘new’ friend, a new love, a honeymoon period of self-discovery that brings with it giddiness and glee. But in the end, it’s the power and trust in knowing and being known, seeing and being seen - enduring in the most positive sense of this word - the trials and tribulations of life with someone who has your back, and the knowledge, wisdom and guidance to support you through anything, this is where love is, in friendship, for me.
Yvonne, thank you for being my best friend, and thank you to the universe for aligning to bring us together!