I admire my mother-in-law for many things: her politics, her vast vocabulary of swear words that could put a docker to shame, and her excellent nasi goreng.
But one of the things I most hope to emulate is her ability to maintain close female friendships. She has nurtured her closest relationships with the women she grew up with in Glasgow’s Southside for no fewer than 68 years.
She and her three friends are scattered now; one in Aberdeen, one just 10 minutes down the road from us in Glasgow, another in Norway, and my mother-in-law in a village near Dijon. They are still incredibly close.
They’ve been friends for longer than I’ve been alive, and I can only imagine the joys, challenges and griefs they’ve been through, or how comforting it must have been for them to have each other out in the world, cheering on, commiserating, each knowing the other at their very core.
I recently asked my mother-in-law what her advice for a long-lasting friendship was, and she told me simply to “stay in touch”. She and her friends have been corresponding for over six decades about the big things, but also the small details.
It is easy to let life derail good intentions, but being in touch, even if it was just an email about the state of the world or sharing a recipe – those are the tiny stitches that hold together the bigger, more fundamental pieces of a friendship.
We have shown up for each other again and again
I’ve been thinking about this because 2022 marks 20 years since I first met my best friend. It’s not even close to my mother-in-law’s accomplishment, but it is almost half my lifetime and I’m choosing to mark the anniversary.
When people reach 20 years of marriage, they get parties and gifts, so why not for friendship too? Married couples get asked “how they do it”. Yet, somehow, the effort, time, thought and love that goes into platonic friendships is often overlooked as simply being a “given”.
Traditionally, in marriage, it would be our “china” anniversary, which seems fitting since it does take careful, thoughtful handling, the mending of any chips and cracks, to maintain a friendship over that time. We shouldn’t underestimate what it takes to keep a good one going, or how valuable they are.
They’ll inevitably have ups and downs, because, of course we, our lives and priorities, change over the years. Not all of my friendships made it. Even my best friend and I had periods when we were busy or disconnected. But, we have shown up for each other again and again. Because we love one another. Because we will always, as we say “gas each other up”.
Even when those conversations have not been easy, because we know each other so well, they have strengthened our friendship
We’ve been through study, new jobs, new homes, good and bad partners, babies, ill-health and great accomplishments. We invented our own “speedy time”, thus named for the change in physics that apparently occurs when we are together, when time folds in on itself and somehow a whole weekend passes like an hour.
But we’ve also consistently challenged each other and worked on having a relationship that’s honest and open. Even when those conversations have not been easy, because we know each other so well, they have strengthened our friendship.
I knew I could trust her
We met while both working at the Globe Theatre on the Thames in London. We sold plastic bottles of beer and cartons of nuts from stalls on the terrace and then, while The Comedy of Errors spilled out from the open, thatched roof, we’d sneak a drink from the fridge and go hide in the toilets and gossip, worry, dream and confide in one another.
We basically made our friendship in those toilets, while American tourists drifted in and out. We smiled cheerily at them while sitting on the sinks, swigging our drinks.
I had just fallen in love with a woman and was only just getting used to having to “come out” in each new work environment, but I knew I could trust her.
We were both in our early 20s, and eventually moved in together, above a Ladbrokes betting shop in North London. We filled the flat with Wizard of Oz kitsch memorabilia, indie music and a long row of rainbow coloured shoes, snaking along our hallway-cum-living room.
On weekends, at a secret disco in the back of a kebab shop in Camden Town, we’d switch shoes when they started hurting us at 2am and keep dancing until dawn.
Let’s celebrate friendships like marriages
Our lives are different now, both busy working mums. She’s a head teacher and I’m a writer, just like we always planned. Somehow, we ended up moving through the chaos of our youth, with each other as a constant, and ended up where we wanted to be, loving our kids and our work, juggling a lot of plates and accepting that, sometimes, we’ll drop a few and laugh-cry on the phone to one another about it.
Like my mother-in-law and her friends, we live far apart. Her in London, me in Glasgow. So, each day, we share pictures of our mucky kids, of burnt dinners and new shoes. We often just message to say how proud we are of each other: “Imagine if those two girls sitting on the sinks in the Globe Theatre toilets could see us now”.
Let’s acknowledge the work that goes into friendships, and the value they have
So, let’s celebrate our friendships like we celebrate our marriages. Let’s acknowledge the work that goes into them, and the value they have.
Here’s to still celebrating in our 70s. Maybe with a disco in the back room of a Camden kebab shop, where we’ll swap rainbow shoes at 2am and keep on dancing until dawn.
Kerry Hudson is an Aberdeen-born, award-winning writer of novels, memoirs and screenplays
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