Remember the times when you’d spend all day with your friends at school and still call them in the evenings because ya know, you missed them? That doesn’t happen when you’re a grown up does it?
As soon as you’re in your late 20s, everyone is too busy adulting to be at your beck and call. They’re going to Friends Fest, off on hen dos, touring London on a gin bus and padding out their weekends for the next year. Before you know it, 3 months have rolled by without seeing each other.
I have friends that I can go forever without seeing and pick up just where we left off – they’re my gold dust in life. They keep me sane and I love them dearly. But I can’t help but think I want more. I want more of them and their precious time, however selfish that may sound.
I’m fiercely independent and love my own company BUT I love people more. I miss the spontaneity of being able to call up your pals when you were 14 and know that they were always free to go to town and hang around the Band Stand for six hours. And also, I miss knowing that at 8.45, you’re gonna walk into your form room holding your lunch in a plastic River Island bag and know that your squad will be there, painting their nails with Tipex and talking about who’s changed their MSN name to some cryptic lyrics from a beautiful, classy love song. After all, nothing let an ex know what he was missing quite like Eamon’s F*ck it I Don’t Want You Back.
Adulting and spontaneous plans don’t really go together because everyone has a crappy calendar to stick to now. These days we only communicate in WhatsApp group chat, a series of voice recordings, screenshots and tags on relevant ‘This is us’ memes on Facebook.
I want more of them and their precious time however selfish that may sound.
I don’t want to spread myself thinly between people that really don’t add any value to my life. I want to concentrate on maintaining the relationships with the good eggs. The ones that complement my life as, I hope, I do theirs. It’s just that sometimes it’s impossible to pin down a date that’s good for everyone and that’s sooo sucky.
Working in London and living in Brighton is great and I’m all for the opportunities that have opened up because of that, but it means I miss out on all the little things. Fly by visits from BFFs, random belly laugh conversations about whose mum has taken the most embarrassing selfie lately or the chance to lend them my clothes. I don’t care what they say, I have got better at that. They’re the little things but they’re also the most meaningful things. Once upon a time, we would have been able to finish each other’s sentences, our periods were in sync (cos menstrual synchrony = ultimate sign you’re true bffs right?) and we knew exactly how the other one felt about last night’s episode of The Hills. Now, it goes something like this: Schedule dinner, down merlot, summarise the last 18 weeks of your life and possibly reminisce on the comedy sketch we called high school. Like remember the time I learnt the Ludacris rap in Ciara’s Oh song off by heart, or the time we pierced each other’s lobes with a blunt earring. Oh yeah, lunchtimes were productive back then don’t ya know.
It doesn’t help that award winning friendships are all around us, forcing us to question if ours are really up to scratch. Look at Stranger Things. You wouldn’t catch Mike, Lucas and Toothless ditching their mission to find Will for Netflix and (eggo) Snacks, nor would you catch Nemo’s clown fish dad Marlin ditching Dory cos… he’s had a stressful week and is staying home to do his caviar face mask instead.
We all grow up in a lot of ways but I’ll never stop wanting to surround myself with the people that matter most. If you haven’t got time, ya need to make time don’t you? So cancel the plans to go to Ikea – succulents, flat pack wardrobes and sexy Swedish meatballs in gravy can wait goddammit. What I need right now is a WKD Blue, a terrible horror movie and a couple of pals to sit there and tickle my arm. They were our glory days!
