I still have memories of being with my first friend, Lucy*, when I started infant school aged 5 way back in 1978. My memories are mostly of the fun, security and love that came from that first friendship. I remember holding hands with my friend in the playground and feeling like the world was a lighter, brighter and happier place because I had a friend.
Amazingly we recently bumped into each other again and are now friends on social media. Its incredible to think that she has known me for almost as long as my sister and parents! We were close until secondary school and then we drifted into different social groups.
Secondary school was an even scarier time and it took me a while to find my feet. Eventually I become close friends with Jemma*. We were both tall and slim with blond hair and similar goofy hairstyles - we weren't part of the cool and popular set! What we both shared was a difficult relationship with our parents at that time and therefore were born survivors. Jemma had a wonderful acerbic wit and together with my observational sense of humour and being able to flip the negative into the positive we made it through our GCSEs and then A-levels. At university we wrote to each other regularly and I loved receiving her witty letters. Then we lost touch a few times over the years but she always found me via my mother's address. The last time we met was 6 years ago and then she just dropped off the radar and I miss her. However, I know that if we ever meet again we will pick up where we started and it will be like we only saw each other yesterday. That is the marvellous, and miraculous thing with close friends.
When I moved back to my hometown in South Devon a year ago my close friend Margaret* that I have known since I studied my A-levels was there waiting for me with open arms. She and her husband helped me with setting up furniture in my new home and we have reignited our friendship meeting as regularly as we can.
Friendship constantly amazes me. I have made some wonderful close friends from a wide variety of social situations since leaving University twenty years ago. I've been lucky that wherever I've worked, whichever group I have belonged to and whichever school my children have gone to I have made good friends. I value the friendships I have and tend to them like a beautiful garden of flowers as much as I can within the context of being a working parent. I love my new friends and old.
Of course some friendships move on as life changes, leaving school, jobs, etc. When my relationship broke up in 2011 I prepared myself for my friendships changing. My mother had pre-warned me that some friends would drift away. Even so I was surprised to see which friends stepped back and which came forward with open arms. Being a single woman I was no longer part of the 'couples set'. Another single mother friend said to me "don't be surprised about no longer being invited to dinner parties and BBQs by your married friends" which is true for most but not all of my friends.
My closest friends stuck with me on this new path and I am so thankful! During the rough times when my partner and I could no longer live in our home together and friends put me up in their spare room or on their airbed. After I'd moved out of the family home, with my children and was living with my mother, because life was too unbearable living with my ex, a friend generously loaned us her lovely home for a few weeks while her and her husband were away. Another close friend listened, laughed and cried with me regularly over many glasses of wine.
I needed to adjust to my new situation as a lone parent and find like minded souls so I created a single parent friendship group. I put allot of time and energy into it, secured some funding which paid for us all to have some day trips and experiences. Most importantly I made mutually friendships - the closest of which have blossomed and grown.
Friendships, like flowers, come in many forms - all our miraculous and truly inspirational.
Thank you to my friends.
Have a great day
blessings Claire
No comments:
Post a Comment