Friendships - for a Reason, a Season or Life
I’ve always had an anxious feeling in my tummy in regards to friendships and feeling accepted. Handling racism very early on; my mum found me as a toddler in the bath covered in talc, trying to get white enough for kids to play with me. I learned to assimilate, I learned to be what people wanted me to be at school, more so as the scholarship kid trying to fit in regardless of being different, which resulted in becoming likeable head girl material. It was in the sixth form where I forged life-long friendships, yet I realise it’s becoming ever more complex as we get older, as we all shift and evolve and have children of our own. Life shapes us and changes us, yet in some friendships, we remain ever-labelled by our status of the past. For me, I was “the arty, emotional one”.
I hold my hands up now, I was incredibly anxious to the point of having a socially acceptable drinking problem to cope with it all from, dare I say it, my early teens, to an awakening at age 30. Life was like one big game of snakes and ladders. Don’t get me wrong, I had fun, lots of it, I was up for a good time, but more often than not it would result in shame being a connecting force. Either just with myself or in being ludicrously hungover, with a heavy dose of shame that came the next day when bonding over the tales from the night before. I realised the shame I felt hungover, was similar to the shame I felt as a kid. It’s as if I had grown to find a space of comfort in the most complex and harmful ways. Not a healthy foundation for any human, let alone one trying to make friends.
Try being a friend in amongst all that; I constantly worry that I wasn’t ever any good at it yet folk are still supportive of me and around me and I do my utmost to be there for others. It’s taken me this long to understand that about my past self. Getting divorced was one shift, where relationships that weren’t sustained by booze and the marriage fell to the wayside. Those, in for the sad times, as well as the good, stuck around and I distanced myself from others too. It was during this post-divorce time where work took me to Hong Kong, I was far away from home, new in the city that a weathered American ex-pat drawled “friends are for a reason, a season or for life” as we chatted over a beer. I never saw her again. Over time, I was slowly letting go of the shame sharing, letting go of this being my only way to connect with people.
But where life changed dramatically and suddenly, in the most dramatic turn of events almost seven years ago now, the experience has shaped me into someone new. And my already streamlined friendships faced the biggest test of all. Many didn’t survive. As frank as it feels to write this, the truth is some friendships die. There’s grief, of course, but just because they didn’t last, doesn’t mean they weren't beautiful or what you needed at that moment in time. Still, though, the hurt is deep because something tragic happened and potentially one side didn’t know what to say or how to handle it and it burned the bridge between you. Once you’re on the edges of life and you don’t fit in their world anymore, it creates isolation like no other. With a cavernous loneliness to ponder the frank awakening that they weren’t the close friend you had thought they were.
Friendships need the commonality of consistency, circumstances and communication as the foundation. If one or two of these pillars crumble, the relationship is tested; all three and then it’s sudden death.
Many of you may have experienced a personal loss that has ruptured and caused this, much like what we’ve been through too. Now add the crisis of the pandemic. Well, here is a test like no other. Who would have thought this would become a crisis in its own right; our loss on every level exacerbated by global turbulence.
Everyone has turned inward, held tight to those that truly matter, or those within the bubble, and anyone else has fallen to the wayside. And this has impacted us all. As our mental health has changed for the foreseeable, so have many of our approaches to life. Much like how we experienced trauma seven years ago, things like this separate the wheat from the chaff. But what if your wheat bale wasn’t so bountiful to begin with? A YouGov poll last year found that a quarter of people in Great Britain have no one they can call a 'best friend' and nearly one-in-eight admit to having no friends at all. Just five years ago, this stat was one in 10!
When situations mean you become isolated, the foundations of friendships, consistency, circumstances and communication are fractured. The pandemic and our personal circumstances have meant we have watched friendships fall, some fade, others crash and burn. Without stirring the pot, showing some love and attention, many have felt out of sight, out of mind. Or folk have had so much going on, they haven’t had the energy to keep in touch.
Adding a phone call, to an already Zoom heavy work week just feels like such an effort. It’s not a priority and this too is where the cavern widens, some so deep it’s highlighting the disparity how those have weathered this storm.
This is where I noticed my shame connection creeping back, striving and forcing to keep some connections alive and falling back on old habits. It’s not been pretty nor healthy. The anxieties have risen and I am sure I am not alone. Doubts set in, questioning why they haven’t called or why everyone else is meeting up and we haven’t been included. It’s not easy to keep those thoughts at bay, as my experience of this pandemic has felt so raw and troubling, being self-employed, losing steady income streams, alongside shielding and complex caring roles. It’s been isolating beyond belief and caused wider gaps in my friendship circle, whereby some have remained employed, saved and flourished in many ways; I haven’t. Some have faced worse, redundancies and death of loved ones.
This whole experience felt like a pattern repeating, whereby the shame and insecurity of my circumstances and ultimately my truth has shaped my friendships. There is a tangible shift. But more so within me. I have had to bring it all back down to love, unconditional love for myself to keep me as steady and as grounded as can be when everything feels lost at sea. When meeting the old school friends recently, there was a hint of the past, a feeling of detachment and what I later came to realise was disappointment. I have changed, and perhaps they don’t see me as I am now. And that is ok. I have a part to play in all this too. It’s a two-way street and I have a responsibility for the energy I bring. In turn, others do too.
For every friendship and connection made, I recognise I have to be comfortable in my own self, aware of the energy I bring, but also that I allow from others. I was disappointed in the last meet up as I understand now that filling the cracks in those foundations, strengthening bonds with folk in any situation is almost impossible if we are not surrounded by the energy that fuels, sustains and lifts; it cannot drain.
It cannot be a gossipy toxic space of comparison, of jokes at someone's expense, of idle criticism. There must be space to hold, to nurture, to love.
To allow others to bloom, when they are happy and offer comfort in times of need. To feel deeply. That is what really matters now. Strength, love, kindness, courage. This is where friendships should be - in the depths - with a foundation of love. Not simply because of the length of time we’ve known each other. Everything is interconnected. We all are, but only when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to connect, to truly love. Goodness, I believe in love. And there is no shame in that.
Syreeta Challinger, August 2021
what do you think dear reader? tell us in the comments below
join the conversation
share and comment below, we’d love to hear your thoughts…