They say in crisis you will find out who your true friends are and this week during my (mini) crisis of moving house I truly did learn who my friends are. From the practical help to the emotional support my girls never failed me. As I sat exhausted and emotional on the ever growing pile of shoe boxes I started thinking about my friendships.
Through our teenage years friendships are formed on the school social scale. A blurry maze of unspoken rules that dictate who can speak to who, who we can berate and who we can date. School is a time in our lives when friendships are judged by the sports labels worn and the type of bag you carried. It is a time when it is acceptable to write all over things in tippex to prove our love and when the height of true friendship was in the swapping of some tiny stringy bracelet that cost a month’s pocket money. Looking back at our 13 year old selves it’s too easy to look at those friendships that were made on buses and in playgrounds and remember them as simple times. We forget the heart break of being ignored by the cooler kids, the teenage anguish of feeling no one understands us and the constant race of not being the last girl to kiss a boy or start her period. These early friendships often become the window to our past, these are the friends who remember our first kiss, our first drunken encounter and shared our pride at owning a shell suit. They not only remember and share these memories, but they are also their memories too. It is within this rich tapestry of our early friendship that we start to develop our sense of self and shape our future friendships.
As we move forward in our late teens and early twenties our friendships, like us, start to grow, change and mature. As we start to spread our wings, follow our dreams and create our own path to find out who we are, our friendships naturally follow suit. College and University often pave the way for new and more sophisticated friendships with people we may have never had opportunity to mix with before. This is a time when friendship is based on the kindness of holding our hair back when the right answered to any question seemed to lie in the bottom of a bottle of vodka, clothes are swapped and recycled and shoulders were for crying on.
As women we invest so much in to our friendships. Hours are spent talking, crying, sharing and supporting each other. We live our lives together through our early years with make up’s, break up’s, revision week and a shared goal of getting out on Friday night and head into our thirties facing issues such as marriage, divorce, IVF and loss together. It’s our girl friends that pick us up when are down, make us strong when we feel we can’t go on and give us the giggles when we need it the most.
The mother ship once gave me a piece of advice that has always stayed with me, three little words. Reason, season, lifetime. And as I reflect on my friendships I see she may have had a point. We have friendships for reasons that often we don’t ourselves understand and yet they are crucial in our lives. We have friendships that through work, travels or life are for a short season and then, if you are very lucky, just once, you find the one who will last a life time.
This October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Sadly Breast Cancer is an issue that has or will touch all of our lives in some way at some point. So this blog is dedicated to all the amazing, inspirational women in our lives. To those who give so much to others without complaining, who carry on working when they are tired and in pain. The wonderful mums and nana’s who give us their wisdom, support and guidance. The women that text just to say hi when they know you feel low, the friends who live so far away yet a moment together feels life the years apart have been mere seconds to the amazing friend who will help carry your shoe boxes in a house move, strong independent and brave the support given is unwavering. I can honestly say I am honoured to know all the women in my life. I am in awe that such inspiring beautiful people exist and excel at who they are.
So this October please spread the love for your girls and support Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For every person that reposts this link Sunflower Event Hair and Make Up will donate £1 to ASDA’s Tickled Pink Campaign and for every ‘like’ we get we will donate 50p. Get reposting and liking ladies!!
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