love is all around
postcard 6: on valentine's day, love, and friendship in your 20s
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
prelude
“We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can look at the world in a new way. We can meet.”
—The Wren The Wren, Anne Enright
I kind of want a boyfriend twice a year: Valentine’s Day and Christmastime. It’s less of wanting to have a relationship, but more of feeling like I’m missing out on what these two dates entail. There’s something so endearing and sappy and inviting about the warm Hallmark heart of it all. The other occasional times are when I’m moving heavy furniture. And then the rest of the time, I really couldn’t care less.
The older I get, the more I’m fine with not being in a long-term relationship. I know this may sound a bit counterproductive and the opposite of what I’m supposed to be feeling as I enter my mid-twenties. But I’ve never believed in having a boyfriend just for the sake of having one. If I meet someone in the near future, that’s great. If not, that’s also great. And instead of spending time trying to search for one, I’d rather just spend that energy and time with friends and family who already give me so much love.
Since Galentine’s was also this week, I thought I would talk about friendship. While our lives are often turbulent, the love in friendships never is—and that’s the securest thing in my life. I think there’s something so magical about that unconditional love being the constant in your life. There’s a quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower I love that goes: “We accept the love we think we deserve”. My friends, especially in the last few years, have never let me forget that I am never alone, that I am loved and deserve that sort of love.
We are the sum of everyone we love, and you choose to love your friends every day, with no obligation or transaction. And there is nothing more wonderful than that, that I get to choose and love these incredibly kind and brilliantly smart and effortlessly funny and endlessly patient people, who love fiercely and make my every day a bit brighter.
Last year for my birthday post on Instagram, I asked my closest friends to write me a little note about what friendship means to them in their 20s. I thought this was an apt time to share some of them again (postcards within a postcard)! Happy Valentine’s week and I hope your life is filled with all the love you deserve.
Niña: Sometimes my friends are mirrors of myself, other times we are complete opposites. Regardless, they are there for me constantly, consistently, unfailingly, whether I ask for it or not, and I’d like to think they know that I would absolutely do the same for them as well.
There is a line from Ghosts by Dolly Alderton that talks about friendship as “being the guardian of another person’s hope.” I’ve always used that as a guidepost for how I navigate my friendships, because I love the idea that no matter how crazy the world can get, how low the lows can be, and how unpredictable life can roll, you will still remain standing by the simple fact that your friends love you, that they will lift you up. Kind of like their love, their persistence in your life tethers you to the earth.
Friendship is love from two miles or two thousand miles away. It’s being the first to hear their drunken stories, understand their nearly undecipherable typos, be there through their horrible romantic choices and love them anyway. Friendship is constancy, it is shared strength, it is the security that when you feel adrift, your friend will always bring you back.
Simone: friendship is a 3AM phone call. it’s answering not because it could be an emergency or anything important, but because you want to hear what they have to tell you, and they won’t care that you sound sleep drunk.
it’s not talking for months but picking up right where you left off like no time has passed. it’s reorganizing your entire day just so you can go out and meet them for ten minutes before getting back to your next meeting.
it’s sitting on the floor together when you’ve just found out your mom died an ocean away. it’s a hand on a back. it’s passing a tissue when you’re suddenly sobbing at a table at The Ivy, and then telling the concerned waiters on your behalf that you’re okay - it’s handled, they’ve got it.
they’ve got you. they always do.
Sarah: During my teenage years I believed in a very odd concept of friendship: it meant living in the same town, sharing the same opinions and spending every second of our free time together.
Fast forward 10 years. I‘m in my twenties, I‘m thriving, surviving, struggling, still trying to find out who I am. I‘ve lost friends in the process of growing up, I‘ve gained new ones. My concept of what true friendship entails has thoroughly changed:
We argue, we have changed and accept it, we live on different continents, have different schedules, meet up once a year, leave each other on read for days, then send hundreds of messages in an hour. We love each other endlessly, give unhinged advice, drunk text one another at 2am, are always there for each other.
Elle: As someone who spends a great deal of time alone - physically separated from friends (not by choice) but also as an introvert who prioritizes independence (definitely a choice) - I think my friends are the constant reminder that although I can be alone, as so many of us are in our twenties, I’ll never be lonely.
True friendships might be the one thing that requires effort but feels effortless. Life pulls and pushes you all over the place, demands your attention in good ways and bad, but friends are the anchor through it all. The ones who support you unfailingly, but also ask that you pause and consider a situation from all its angles. The ones that can see through you, who know you better than you know yourself, and are able to push through all the mud to dig her out. The ones that answer your calls. The ones that make you laugh.
People can outgrow each other, and that is okay, but for the people I know are in it for the long haul, I see it more so as growing around one another. At times we'll weave closer and at times farther, but we'll always find our way back because that central love and understanding are our roots.
Faith: Suddenly, going over to each other’s houses every other day has transformed into planning out when the best time is to call—sometimes that’s once a week, or even over a longer stretch of time. Friendship in your twenties is knowing that not seeing each other for a little while isn’t the end of the world. It’s knowing that you can pick up wherever you left off and that nothing has changed. It’s being half-drunk and having your first impulse be to text the group chat an overly sappy and wildly misspelled message conveying how much you love them. It’s wishing they were there when you’re sitting in the most boring lecture or work meeting of your whole entire life, and hearing someone say something that, if they were there, would otherwise cause you to burst out into contagious laughter. It’s going out to dinners and lunches and catching them up on the horrific mess that is your dating life, rehashing everything they’ve missed from beginning to end, being sure to not miss a single detail, and vice versa. It’s “you’ll love this song” and “you should read this book” and “the character in the movie I just watched reminds me of you”. It’s having their city on your weather app and checking what it’s like for them outside today, noticing how similar or different it is to yours. Having their time zone on your clock app, and checking it before you call or send a text, in case they’re still asleep, or about to. It’s holding on tightly to as much of them as they’ll let you have, and telling them you hate them, when really you mean that you love them more than anything in the whole world. It’s being deathly terrified of what comes next, but knowing you have good company to march out into the storm with, linked arm in arm.
Friendship in my twenties looks a lot different than I imagined it would when I was younger—but then again, the people I’m friends with in my twenties also look a lot different, too. A lot of things look different now, but maybe that’s a good thing. It is a good thing.
Emma: i think being in ur twenties is when ur figuring out what u want ur life to mean, in all its dreams. that doesn’t only mean what u want success to look like, but also love. often there’s a belief that u will or should find your life partner during this era of your life, but for me, more than by romantic love, my twenties have been defined by the love i have for and am given by my friends. we’ve grown up together, seen each other through our golden ages and our dark spells, and i know that i will have the love in that my friendships have brought into my life for all my days.
Gabee: i can only describe it in moments. unplanned shopping hauls over imessage. trading recipes at 4am. rants about men and women we date. dancing to fleetwood mac. gifts for promotions, engagements, anniversaries. the eloquently typed message for huge losses. dolly alderton quotes. feeling lost and unmoored together. just the small, conscious decisions people have made for me to feel unabandoned and unfettered and loved despite not deserving it, despite not being everything i could have been.
Mei: i think it’s a time of innocent companionship where ur undergoing rapid growth, not doing it for each other but with each other. u have nothing to lose, but everything to offer. companionship and time seems limitless, and yet we r beginning to reckon with something more finite, something that feels like the rest of our lives. it’s an existential time where we begin to ask ourselves tough questions, and learn from the paths of our own struggles and those of our friends. we become teachers, students— undergoing metamorphoses so beautiful and painful at the same time. it’s thrilling to be there for someone else’s, and comforting for someone to be there for yours. that is a friend.
Natalia: the thing about friendship…true friendship…is that it’s impossible to put into words. how can you adequately describe the feeling of knowing that out of the millions of books in existence, there is another soul out there who happens to be on the exact same page as you.
friendship is sensing the other persons mood based on how they punctuate a text. it’s slowly learning all the random, seemingly insignificant things about a person until they start telling you a story and you’re able to finish it for them (or even write whole texts on their behalf).
friendship is late night phone calls where you’ll be having a podcast worthy pop culture debrief one moment and sharing your deepest insecurities the next. it’s just being there. through it all. you pick each other up when you’re down but also kick each others asses when you’re acting like idiots.
true friendship is impossible to put into word, but once you feel it…you’ll never want to give it up.
Leah: Being in your twenties is a time for change and growth, which sometimes means outgrowing some people - but that’s ok. I think true friends in your 20s will grow together, because you care too much about the friendship to just let it drift away with texts left on read and missed calls. You realise it’s about quality over quantity, with your real friends being the people who you may not speak to for a few weeks, but once you do it’s like no time has passed at all. They’re the ones who sometimes know you better than you know yourself and know how you’re going to react before you do, so they’re not afraid to call you out and stop you spiralling. They ground you, which is what you need the most during the absolute turbulent mess that is your twenties.
Sue: Your 20s is a time when you’re so caught up with trying to figure out your life, and your friends are probably just as busy doing so. But your friends are the ones who will pick up the phone and make time for you, to simply listen to you and relate to your situation, or sometimes to pick you up by making you laugh. They’re people who give you the strength in this world we’re thrown into as we enter adulthood. They assure us that at the end of the day everything will work out and life isn’t so bad because we have our friends by our side.
Jacqueline: As a young child I've always been taught to live an independent life, solve problems by myself and to not 'bother' anyone with my own worries. Now that I'm in my 20s, i rely on nothing more than my closest friends, i've learnt that close friends can give the most upmost support, be there to listen and honestly grow together. Have you ever not talked to a friend for a year or two, have one phone call for 3 hours and it seems like you guys have never been apart? - that is exactly what friendship looks like in my eyes. Being friends is not something you have to 'maintain' or 'keep up', it's something that comes naturally and gets embedded into your lifestyle. After finishing my studies and entering the work circle, this really opened my eyes what the idea of 'friendship' was and i don't think you really realise the true value and comfort friendships give you until your 20s.
Andie: growing up, I was the the type to think lesser of friendships compared to romantic relationships. and when I read conversations on love, it hit me that it was because romantic love had these clear “milestones” (i.e. engagement, marriage, kids) so I felt like I had to invest more into “getting it right.” but now that I’m prioritizing friendships more, I’m quickly realizing how beautiful it is for two people to not have those sharply defined levels but still commit to being in each other’s lives all the same, especially in a time as messy and transformative and unpredictable as our 20s.
interlude i: what i read this week
I’ve recently been very into reading underrated modern classics from 1940-1980. I read A Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector, who is one of my favorite authors. She has a special way of writing that feels very Joycian stream-of-consciousness, but her own authorial flair creates a body of work that is much more haunting and dreamlike.
I also read Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan and didn’t love it; my friend told me that it was similar to Penance by Eliza Clark (which I loved), which is the reason why I picked it up. Although Megan Nolan’s writing is undeniably captivating, the plot progression and characters fell a bit flat and I found myself a bit reluctant to continue reading near the end.
My Ferrante love (while avoiding looking at the full Neopolitan quartet box set on my shelf) continues with The Lost Daughter. One of my reading hyper fixations this year has been books about motherhood and complicated mother-daughter relationships, so this was high up on my TBR.
Here are ten articles I read and enjoyed this week:
interlude ii: what i watched this week
My terrible Valentine’s tradition, regardless of relationship status, is that I rewatch Gone Girl. It’s one of my favorite movies and one of the best book-to-movie adaptations made (dare I say…better), up there with Catching Fire, Pride and Prejudice, and the 2019 Little Women. I do think the book does a better job of conveying just how much of a terrible person Nick is, but the movie gives both Amy and Nick a completely chilling portrayal as well.
I also watched Bad Behavior, which I did not like at all. I still have a few Oscar nominated movies to watch, so I’ll probably get through them this week.
On Youtube, I watched this video on Booktok, this video on Caravaggio, and this video on a Wikipedia king that doesn’t exist.
postlude
things i love: lemon ginger honey tea (i’m sick), heated eye masks, this playlist, books published between 1940-1980, cherry red nail polish.
There is an old saying “You shall know them by their friends”. One of the greatest gifts of my life is a trio of friends that have stood by me for almost 40-60 years. Through thick and thin we’ve stuck together and have lived, loved, and born “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. What a life it’s been. We are 3 “doctors of the 7 liberal arts” and a physician. I don’t know where I’d be without my friends.
Best
Fred
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 i love this!!!!!!!! i do not know how to put things into words. i'll get back to you once i know how 😂 I LOVE MY FRIENDS SO MUCH!!!