In the last couple of weeks I have been chatting to a few people about friendship. Weirdly enough it’s been in the context of getting married and who to invite to the wedding.
When we got married (almost 9 years ago on the 21st of March – guys I can’t even?! How did that happen so quickly?), we were at a transitioning point in our lives. Being only 20, I had just finished high school and a year in college. I knew nothing of friendship where you actually had to work at it. All my friends were loosely termed, “convenience” friends. You know what I mean? The friendships were real and genuine but we were mainly friends because I happened to see them every day. I might have ignorantly assumed it would be easy to continue these friendships as we all headed off into different places in our big wide World.
Boy was I wrong.
Out of all of the 80 people that we invited to our wedding we only see about half of them on a regular basis and half of those people are family! There are many ways to explain this away, but to a large degree it can really only boil down to a lack of commitment on both sides. Probably mostly mine.
As it turns out, it takes a lot of hard work to find your people and keep the momentum of a good relationship. But sometimes you find the real gems, people that – even though you live on opposite sides of the World or even in the same town, but don’t get to see often – are still like that snuggly old t-shirt you slip into when you want to Netflix and Chill. Where you may have gone months without talking, but when you do it’s like you’ve never been apart.
(Here’s looking at you Liz and Zoë – in case that wasn’t obvious enough).
When I was younger I had my main group of friends, but would pride myself on having a wide variety of friends outside of that group too – a social butterfly if you will. It didn’t matter to me if they were popular, nerdy, sporty or whatever the new way to segregate people is nowadays. I liked being able to mix with all of them. This is actually still true of me today, I love making new friends and connecting with them when and where I can (hello #CTMeetUp).
But I am realising the true value in having that handful of real friends. Ones that you could never call acquaintances on a technical glitch. The ones who know weird things about you and still let you sit on the couch, overstaying your welcome on a Thursday night. Where you can be a support and be supported. Having “my people”.
Sometimes making friends later on in life is hard – ask anyone who has moved country and has to start all over again. But it’s still true even if you haven’t moved, it’s often still hard to let people into your World and hope to be let into theirs. It’s especially hard when everyone else knows each other really well and you have to squeeze yourself into the group.
Considering the amount I know about these people now I think I might have squeezed into the group – high five.
Also a belated happy birthday Britt and thank you for being part of our people!
6 comments
Oh I love those photos! And so very true about friendship
Feel the same about you sweets 😉 Love the pics!! <3 xx
Yeah ask anyone who has moved country and has to start all over again, flip, making those kind of comfy tee shirt friends is near on impossible. Those kind of friends are like family… And without them life kind of sucks. Imagine no family and no comfy friends… Fun times I tell you.
Yes, this! My birthday’s around the corner and where in the past, I’ve always invited everybody I know and feel are my “friends” – it’s usually between 15 and 20 people but everybody pays for themselves so it’s much of a muchness money wise – this year, I really feel like just having those who are close to me. Cutting the list down is proving so stressful that I really feel like just having dinner with my husband alone! But I’m a people’s person after all and my birthday wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have lots of people around 🙁
Love this post – and friendship is something I think about everyday. I am one of those friends that puts my all into a friendship and often this means not getting it back (which is not why I do it but it is nice to have some feedback). I often have to re-evaluate friendships in different seasons and phases – which is often very hard and emotional for me x
I get this. I have been reflecting about “friends” I currently have in my life and how much I would like to have even just 1 friend that will be there for me when I need them. I need to make a more conscious effort to make better friendships.