A note to start: I held off on this post for a little while after something deeply unsettling occurred in my life that incited significant vulnerability in me. I have felt the need to hide myself since then in many ways, and will share about that experience when it feels safe and right to do so. What it has shown me however, is once again, how held and surrounded with love and friendship I am. The irony of writing this post in the days before needing to lean so heavily into the love of friends feels frankly impossible to ignore, and has deepened the gratitude I have for them further (if that's even possible?!). How lucky to be loved with such tenderness, intuition and empathy.
Hi angel hearts!! By now, if you've read any of this blog you'll know that a very substantial part of my brain is absorbed by thoughts of romantic and sexual love. I have slept and woke to fantasies and memories, so visceral and luscious the sensation in my body of love and love lost. But my gosh, the magic woven into the love I share with my friends is entirely deserving of its own analysis. Magic is not a strong enough word for the depth of unequivocal dedication and adoration that flows from me for them, the well of love that gushes. I will literally celebrate them until the day I die. The further into adulthood I traipse, the more I am almost crippled with gratitude for my friends, and the more empathy I have for people who have differing levels of either appreciation or ability to connect with the people in their lives. It's both a deficit and surplus mentality. I simply don't think I could live without my friends and cannot grasp a reality in which I am not daily reminded of the love I give and am given by them. No matter if I am in a phase of my life which involves romantic love or not, I am devoted to my friends.
This post is a dedication to them, the women who make my world go around. This post is because I feel bound to share with you that it is largely because of these friendships that I have learnt how to connect securely and felt this in my body. This post emerges from and forms part of women-led conversations about deconstructing the hierarchy of love in which romantic love is always at the top. It is impossible not to, in some ways, experience romantic love with a differing level of fascination or fantasy. With the bodily arrival of romantic love, and as a gift for your vulnerability, what you are offered in return in the way of reciprocal connection is quite extraordinary. When I am in love, I feel like I am on drugs. The tiniest things become acutely joyful, the briefest of sunshine is euphoric. But friendship love feels like being wrapped in the warmth of a never-ending embrace. Sharing a story, a moment, an anxiety with a deeply loving friend is life affirming. I have routinely felt completely capable of tackling the most abhorrent of feelings once I have articulated them to my best friends. I just got off the phone with one of my best friends in the world and we once again lamented that it's frankly absurd that we don't already have each other's faces tattooed on our bodies (I'm this close!!!). There is something specifically grounding about having your world views and values reflected around you. When I witness these breathtaking women walking through life with such courage and integrity, I am both reminded of the unwavering capacity of humans to grow, and the necessity to do this in community. I have mentioned in many posts now that I believe to my core in the interdependence of humanity, both romantically and in friendship. And I really do.
I have always been incredibly lucky to be surrounded by the kind of people that make friendship effortless. I am not sure which came first: my intense desire to share and be devoured in my sharing, or the meeting of women and girls who offered an atmosphere in which sharing felt transformative, and inevitable. I have had intimate friendships for as long as I have memory and remember always sharing with them in a way that I now find remarkable.
I distinctly remember being seventeen, walking on the beach with a darling friend, a long way from returning to the road that trailed back to our houses. Her presence so calming, oozing with tenderness and curiosity. At a time in which I was hiding significant illness and harm, she became the first person in the world to know that I had bulimia. She had such an extraordinary level of emotional capacity and empathy, in a way that my romantic relationships in my late teens couldn't offer, for absolutely no fault of theirs. I can't remember feeling that my friends could abandon me in the same way that the fear of being abandoned by romantic connections impacted my ability to share vulnerably and grotesquely. Perhaps it comes from an ongoing desire to have our experiences validated and heard, but the ability to welcome someone to witness your barest and most unguarded self is uniquely freeing and strengthening. In each moment met with an empathetic gaze, a reflective query, an exclamation, we are bolstered for the interactions in which we cannot be met. And yet, I have always had less fear sharing with friends than partners. While I have been deliciously absorbed by romantic relationships in which sharing is welcomed, I do so for the early months with torturous fear of overstepping. Conversely, I give the women I meet my intimacy freely and with a sense that our connection is reverent and entirely natural. I am not scared to offer myself to them, I am secure.
As is emblematic and representative of a love that is secure, there is an underlying choice that makes up the day to day of our lives together. We opt in to continuing to love each other in all the minutes and hours of our days, because it feels like the most natural and necessary path. We are not tied to each other in a way that is burdensome, imbued with resentment, or obligation, for we are always free to ebb and flow in our commitments. If I don’t hear from a friend, no part of me assumes they have fallen out of love with me. I respect and appreciate our space and the individuality of our lives as they emerge with separation and togetherness. How remarkable. This can only be a sign of the security in our connections, and a reverence that I am learning to relate to my romantic relationships. In being reminded so regularly that the love we share in friendship is a choice we make repeatedly, we are being given attainable evidence of our innate worth and the reality that we are all easy to love.
Beyond the emotional, my physical body has been held, adored, normalised, and nourished by my friendships. In the food I have been fed lovingly, and the cakes I have baked and left at doorsteps, my body has been supported in health and mental ill health by receiving and providing. Where my body has often been an innate source of discomfort over the years, I have consistently been safe in my body around my friends. If you've spent much time with me, you'll know that my most natural state is being nude, most definitely as a reclamation of the discomfort I have felt in my body in that time and prior. Platonic intimacy in your body is a marvel. Being in such a state of naked ease with my friends has continued to reassure me that my physical existence and sensuality should and must be shared without shame or fear. Because of the amount of time I have spent naked with my friends, nudity has long transcended the realm of sexuality and sits distinctly in the same space as eating and breathing. No matter how my body has changed, I have shown it all. My friends have witnessed me in my fluctuations with weight, hair, skin, hormones and unwaveringly seen beauty. I am constantly overwhelmed with the beauty of my friends. The way I see their spirits matching the way I see the shapes and colours that represent what strangers see of them.
I don't always prescribe to the schools of thought around attachment theory, conscious as I am that the origin of said theories are based in patriarchal ideas of gender and nurturing. However, I have found them helpful in articulating clusters of patterns in styles of relating to people that I have witnessed or embodied. I would have said a few years ago that I am true to anxious attachment behaviours; fear of abandonment, a tendency to over provide emotional support, a hefty need for reassurance. In my early twenties, the concept of relating securely to someone felt impossible. I have returned to the concept of anxious attachment in therapy over and over, so intertwined it was in my psyche. While romantic relationships in my twenties were typically a space of anxiety in amongst the cherished love, throughout it all, my friendships prevailed. A web of loving women built through university, work, housemates, friends of friends maintained both with ease and ferocity. As I spent time in and out of romantic relationships, as I hit my mid to late twenties, the foundations of my strength felt reliant on the knowledge that I was so loved by my friends. As the relationship I spent years building and cherishing crumbled a while ago now, it was the love of my friends, so consistent, so affirming, so reflective, that held me. I will never stop being grateful for the way they guarded me. And so, as I have reflected on the gratitude I possess for the ways in which I have exponentially grown since that breakup, it feels crucial to acknowledge that the depth of self-compassion and care I have built is in part, because the women around me had been doing it for years. While the idea of dipping into true vulnerability romantically is still quite scary to me, I have such a wealth of evidence from my life that nothing bad happens when I share myself. As I have offered layers of myself I had for so long hidden away in shame and fear, my friends have continually met me with care, tenderness, and the affirmation that I am welcome. All of me is welcome here. I know it is true because I feel the same about them. There will not be a time when I am not lit up with excitement or curiosity about the prospect of learning more about a friend. I am a conscious explorer, each tiny insight into them met with an even greater love unearthed in me. Their wins are my wins. Celebrating my friends is effortless. I am bursting with admiration and pride in their achievements, all magnificent to me.
I want to close this with a tiny reflection on the women I love. They are folded in singularity and multiples in these words, their traits overlapping as I am seemingly drawn to uniquely remarkable women. I could write essays about them all. May you see yourself in these words, because no matter who you are, someone sees you the way I see these angels.
For the woman who first made Melbourne my home. We huddled over coffees in Heart Attack and Vine and met each other with a ravenous curiosity for the life we had known before each other. She is changing the world, her intellect matched only by her empathy.
For the woman who fell into my life with all the purpose of a friendship that was written into the stars. Her smile a heavenly passageway into all the goodness, sensuality, embodiment and love she possesses. There is no one like her. She is all the magic of the earth woven into one luscious beauty.
For the woman who walks with romance woven into her very being, a deeply powerful and radiant reminder of unconditional care. Her loyalty is ever present, her protectiveness a gift of maternal and feminine intervention. She seeks out the corners of your mind with generosity and wisdom and is uniquely able to hold peaceful space for reflection.
For the woman who makes me laugh like no other. She gives and gives to the world, offering her vulnerable heart without trepidation and with a constant eye to the people around her. We met at a time when I didn't know I needed her, and rapidly wove our lives together with ease, devotion and magnificent joy.
For the woman who is dripping in sunshine and the purest of sweetness, if I could marry her I would. She is the kind of person people write songs about, the kind of person you instantly adore, the kind of person that could invigorate you on the saddest of days. Loving her has been the greatest gift and being loved by her in turn the surest strength I could envision.
For the woman who has been there from the start. A deeply curious and introspective force, she is as gentle as she is fierce. She radiates wonder and commitment to self in a way that is forever endearing. I am so grateful to have grown with her, our infinite iterations and explorations welcomed by each other with the overarching notion that our love will endure.
For the woman who fights like no other for social justice and a life in line with her values. She reminds me of all the ways we are greater in community, and the need to continually reflect with self-compassion. She is as brave as she is breathtaking.
For the women I adore who share a unique passion and experience in dedicating ourselves to our work. I have been continually invigorated and grounded in the communality of our motivations and the way we have far transcended that into true intimacy. I am in awe of each one of them, energised by the work and our love for each other. I will hold them with me in our present and our futures, gushing with gratitude as I am for the opportunity to love women with whom I am aligned, received and driven.
For the woman I met right when we needed each other. In her joy, her laughter, her commitment to doing hard things, her empathy, her kindness: it is a privilege to love her. She has added to my life exponentially, our ease together so true to the endless ways we share vulnerability with a consciousness of its preciousness and the necessity to love and be loved.
For the woman to whom I have nearly always lived on the other side of the world. We met as young women and have been gifted with the opportunity to watch each other grow and fight for the lives we have dreamt about at yearly increments. What a resounding gift to witness her extraordinary resilience and yet, softness. She embodies femininity in all the most profound ways: with mystical wonder, passion, and the most generous of spirits.
For all the women who move me, I would not be me without you. I am grateful in a way that is as much within my body as my brain, my blood runs with the knowledge that we are greater together. I have learnt my value, my strengths, and my unwavering faith in love in connection through you. No matter the version of me that has settled into my façade, I have been offered a mirror of such devotion and amorous affection. Secure love is the love that we share for however long we share it. What a gift is friendship, unlike any other.
And to all the friends I am yet to make, I cannot wait to love you.
Ps. The beautiful first and third images are from Pinterest, listed without artist details.
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