It is said the that the average woman has 5 real friends, this blog is for you all of you......
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 our shared 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.
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 a time when friendship is based on the kindness of holding our hair back when the right answered to any question seemed to be vodka, clothes are swapped and recycled and shoulders were for crying on.
As we turn into our thirties, we see these friendships changing again. As we face issues such as marriage, divorce, IVF and bereavements, we find the bonds go deeper than we could ever have imagined. Holding each other’s hair back is replaced with holding hands through the cruellest curve balls life could throw at us. We reflect over bottles of wine ( as opposed to the Lambrini of our teens) over our teens when we felt life was easy, when there were so many boys to chase, dating was fun and our stomachs were flat enough to brave a crop top. Now life just seems complex, men might as well speak a different language, our jobs rule our life and our once wash board stomachs now require a two drink minimum in a badly lit room to be viewed by another living sole, or is that just mine?!
As I think about my closest friends, all different ages, and different ideals and from different walks of life, but the thing that binds our relationships is that they are all so inspirational. It is the greatest honour to share, in some ways, the lives of the women who inspire you and make you strive to aim higher in all aspects of your life.
It is the adventures we have, the memories we make and the tears we share that are an essential part of who we are and who we will become. Through arguments, men (who undoubtedly come and go), children and bottles of wine, bonds of friendship can be tested and proven time and time again. For every man who tramples all over your heart, there are friends to wipe away the tears, pour you into AllSaints tiny, tightest and finest and help you dance the blues away. For every set back we encounter in our professional life there are friends to offer advice, support and chocolate. Our girls are gym buddies, diet supporters, and emergency childcare providers. They are our unwavering support as we face challenges and try to find the strength to carry on at our lowest moments. Some we are born four days apart from, some we went to school and university with, some began as work colleagues but became so much more, and some we are not sure where we found them but are very grateful we did. So to all these beautiful, inspirational women who give so much, thank you xX
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