Tonight I had the most fabulously chilled out tea party with some lady
friends of mine. In an effort to reaffirm and deepen our friendship (oh bless)
and just to spend time with each other we have been holding little tea drinking
sessions! It’s actually adorable. We sit around and discuss our lives, drinking
scrumptious teas in lovely teacups that are freshly brewed from ornate teapots.
Tonight was extra special because as we were sitting around our circle of tea,
with a backdrop of thunder and heavy rain pouring down, we suddenly had a
blackout. After a little shock and a lot of me holding onto Michelle, whilst I
was jumping up and down with excitement (I’m still young, what of it), we found
some tall and small, and tea light candles and decorated the room with light.
It
really was just a fabulous chance to catch up with some friends and check in on
each other. Having just had Valentine’s Day, I have been thinking a lot of
about love and friendship and all matters of the heart. Whilst I disagree with
the consumerist driven, greed and jealous centric praxis of the holiday, having
recently had a small revelation in my life, I am trying to change the way I
view and act toward love. Whilst Valentine’s Day and the people celebrating it,
get so caught up with expressing romantic love, this often precludes the other
forms that love takes on! Whilst it is easy to get bitter if your single, and
upset and lonely, we need to not forget that we are always surrounded by love,
day in and day out. We need to remember that we need to love ourselves first
and foremost, but we also need to utilise and rely on the strength of love
found in our friendships. These relationships are of uttermost importance,
because when things go sour with your romantic love, these people are the
crutch upon which you rest.
One of my friends has just recently gotten out of a long-term
relationship and has been struggling with this idea of love. There have been
moments in her break up that she has asserted that she needs to find a man to
validate herself and justify herself, her independence and beauty. I find it
upsetting that my dear friend, my beautiful, confident, intelligent friend
feels that in order to be a better person, a more whole version of herself, she
needs to be in a relationship. Whilst having time to talk to her about all of
this (and she was at my little tea party) I think she is coming to realise that
the most important relationship anyone can have is the one you have with
yourself. Even more so when you have just broken up with someone you dearly
loved. I explained to her that love can’t just be switched off and on and that
in order to properly heal from the trauma that, let’s face it 99.99% of people
go through when the get out of a relationship regardless of how it ends, she
needs to reassert herself and her independence and self worth not through
another person.
Whilst I have faith that my friend will realise her importance and I
think that she understands that she needs some time to be single, it reminded
me of something really insightful a guy friend of mine said recently. On the
topic of Valentine’s Day and relationships, he noted that society doesn’t
really teach us (or really allow for us) to be single. I think this is
something really important to realise, and this realisation is quite saddening.
When did it become that we were to be defined by our romantic relationship
status? When did it become ok to conflate your identity and self worth with a
social status of being in a relationship? I was out shopping today (not the fun
type but the boring, let’s buy some groceries type) and this woman walked past
me talking very loudly on the phone. I couldn’t help but overhear (that’s a
nice way of me saying that she was practically having the conversation with me,
standing next to me, screaming) but she was obviously talking to a friend. She
said, “I’m so glad you finally can be happy, all you really needed was to find
someone and it’s about time you had a boyfriend”. This woman was only young,
but I found the conversation so hollowing. She equated her friends worth and
her happiness with whether or not she had a man. When did that become ok?
Society doesn’t teach us to be single. Now you could make some argument
about the evolutionary need to be in a relationship of sorts so that we can
procreate and continue living, but honestly, in this day and age, fuck off. We
need to start working at loving ourselves more. Being confident and happy and
secure in who we are and what we do, loving ourselves as individuals and for
being individual enough to assert our self worth independent of another. And we
need to start loving our friends more and taking out that time in the day to
check in and check on these types of relationships. We need to realise that
partners come and go, but it’s the friendships that were there before, that are
usually the ones that help you out when its over. Stop taking our friendship
love for granted and starting living life with more self-love. Wow this might
have just gotten a little preachy, but honestly, if you can’t love yourself,
how can you expect anyone else to love you?
Because loving my friends is about going geo-caching with there fine asses.
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