Everything I know about my gorgeous friends

Picture this: it’s a Saturday night and I’m home alone for one of the first times since moving into my flat-share almost a year ago. I’ve got a glass (okay, a bottle) of wine by my side, and I’ve already accidentally box dyed my hair a shade (or five) darker than I intended to. I’m feeling slightly fragile, and then I remember that the TV adaptation of ‘Everything I Know About Love’ has just been released. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was going to love it; I’d read the book in lockdown (along with every other female millennial) and it had instantly drawn me in hook, line, and sinker with it’s sentimental and slightly chaotic relatability. However, what I didn’t expect, was to be physically unable to restrain myself from devouring the entire series in a single night, as I sat curled up on my sofa with nostalgic (and mildly hormonal) tears filling my eyes.

Now I know that I’m one of the lucky ones; I was able to watch each episode with a warm (and moderately smug) glow inside, knowing that I’ve squeezed every last drop out of my twenties. Pretty much since the moment I moved to London eleven years ago, I’ve been surrounded with joyful moments, exciting opportunities, and friends that are so fiercely loyal, I’ve (for the most part) felt capable of fearlessly taking on anything the world has had to throw at me. So I guess Dolly Alderton (who basically feels like a best mate at this point anyway) has inspired me to write this blog post for those wonderful friends of mine; a love letter to my absolute life lines, who have kept me afloat in the choppy waters of becoming an adult.

I was always one of those teenagers that couldn’t wait to grow up and head out into the big, wide world; it never even struck me for a second that the big, wide world would actually be pretty darn scary, and being a grown up (and having to pay council tax) was going to be even scarier. The last decade has been a wild concoction of colourful, confusing, exciting, exhausting, and magical moments, where I’ve felt like I’m delightedly bouncing on a trampoline one moment, and struggling to wade through quicksand the next. At times it's felt like the only consistencies in my life are my Flo app accurately predicting my period to within an inch of it's life, and the guarantee that no matter how much I get paid each month, I will still end up with approximately £1.50 left in my bank account at the end of it. One thing I do know for certain though, is that growing up doesn’t feel half as terrifying when you have friends around you that make you feel as though you have a big, inflatable crash mat underneath you, waiting to cushion your (many) falls.

The past year of my life has been particularly turbulent, and it’s the understatement of the century to say that I’m somewhat struggling to come to terms with the fact that I am turning 30 this month. I guess I was kind of hoping that if I stayed quiet enough, and crept off in the opposite direction, the big 3-0 would leave me be, and I could happily stay a twenty-something forever. Okay - admittedly I’ve been anything but quiet about it, so perhaps I only have myself to blame, but low and behold, this month I am entering a new decade of my life, and I have no choice but to embrace the fact that whilst lots of my friends are having babies and buying houses, I’m having breakdowns and buying expensive face creams.

I’m slightly unsure of the destination I was aiming for with these random ramblings, but I suppose I’m just trying to emphasise how important it is to surround yourself with people who make you feel like the most sparkly and loveable version of yourself. You need friends that you can message mid-way through your late night existential crisis that will instantly respond with ‘we’re absolutely here for you, but please don’t cut your hair’; you need friends that won’t laugh at you when you have a little cry because you can’t find the end of the cellotape; and (perhaps most importantly) you need friends that won’t just take a picture of you; they'll take the picture of you.

I think I’ve been spending a lot of my twenties trying to temporarily Pollyfilla the holes in my life with glasses of wine, last minute holidays, gym classes, tubs of ice cream, and shit dates, when I’ve actually had the long term fixes to my cavities by my side all along. As I enter into my thirties, I hope I can get a little bit braver when it comes to being on my own, but until that happens, it’s pretty great to know that ultimately everything is going to be okay because I have my suit of armour ready to protect me when the going gets tough.

Thank you for everything, pals - who knows where I’d be without you.

Katie x