I sat writing this Letter to you in a cafe in Selfridges in London, munching down a huge salad and people watching, which is one of my favourite hobbies. I’m a genuine creep and have to try not to lean into get the whole conversation. Fortunately for me, the tables were so close we were essentially communally dining. I loved the two women next to me, clearly friends of depth and of time. They laughed out loud when one ordered mushrooms because the other said ‘she knows I can’t stand them’. They spoke in the kind of short stunted half-finished sentences that very old friends do. The kind where you can finish each other’s sentences and there’s no backstory needed. It made me misty and tight in my chest for all my long term friends.
The ones you don’t need to explain a thing to or apologise in advance for what you’re about to say, or audit what you say on any level. Who accepts us completely and utterly for the nutcases that we all are as humans. These long term beauties in my life aren’t here in London with me, although they pass through, and I breathe them in deeply when they are here, or when I am lucky enough to travel to meet them. And my heart quirky pounds with the secret delights of returning back to Australia to see all my friends there without my family. Without the responsibilities that comes with partners and kids. Just juicy do whatever I want whenever I want time, in between a tonne of teaching, but that barely even feels like work.
And so I write this to you today, with the warmest of demands – hold your friends close, as in really really close. Tell them you love them. Abundantly. I tell all my friends, male included, that I adore and love them all the time, in fact, it borders on nuts, but I never want the day to come when they are no longer here, and I think I wish I told them I loved them more. I want all the people I love to know I love them deeply. And with digital technology, I fear we FEEL like we are in touch all the time, but in reality, we are not connecting as much as we need as humans. If this rings a bell, make some changes.
Written with love,
Jac x