Resilient forever, but handle with care

I've spent the past few months catching up with old friends... housemates, schoolmates, play mates. Great friends - some that I've gotten to know over many years, people that know my secrets and I their's. Friends that I've laughed and cried with. And friends that I don't always see enough of.

It's fair to say that many friends have married and settled into roles of husband, wife, mother, and father, so their lives have shifted and evolved, sadly, often away from mine. Many have new friends, from maternity classes, through their partners, and more recently their kids' schools. They juggle work, travelling spouses, dinner parties, and weekend social and sporting events. I am constantly in awe at how resilient we humans are. How deep-down there is that reserve energy and somehow everyone keeps it together and survives another day and another week. I feel exhausted just listening to some routines and yet impressed at so many achievements.

I on the other hand am meant to be living this social life, free from commitment and responsibilty, of dancing on tables and going to bed as the first birds start their morning chatter. I don't think I've ever danced on a table. Maybe I should! But, there's no fun in cracking open a bottle of wine unless you are in the company of friends, to toast to old memories, drown out others, and hope for great adventures ahead. Friends, to be your family when your family are thousands of miles away, to share your dreams and your pains, laugh at our stupidy and commend our bravery!

Under all this tireless resilience we are sensitive to comment, criticism, rejection, and exclusion. It's a fragile network that needs to be handled with care. This little family of friends that forever shifts as the patterns of our lives change.

As a person living in London, you never need to be alone, but you can be lonely. I think I can say the same for friends in relationships, who can also feel alone in their challenges to balance their lives, to be an individual in their own right and yet find the right level of compromise with their partner and children. Maybe we get too distracted on what we are striving for, rather that pausing on our journeys, to stop, exhale, crack open a bottle of wine, dance on a table and enjoy time with our friends... before diving back into our crazy lives.