Falling in love with a friend.
Discovering a woman that you love, but do not want to be physically intimate with, is fantastic.
You meet them and you feel instantly connected.
That giggling, rambling, story-telling, of two people who are so excited to have found each other.
Who are so excited to listen to each other.
You look at this person and you hear them agree with you, they laugh at your jokes, mention shows you love, books you love, books you haven’t read yet but know you will love.
You can tell that there are so many conversations to have with this person.
And part of you thinks, this is something, this could be a friendship.
And you are right.
If you happen to be a woman, who happens to be attracted to both men and women, meeting anyone and falling only friendship in love with them, is a rare and beautiful thing.
And this woman, she is the best.
She is so funny. She uses words in her accent that you think are in-jokes related to country of origin when in fact they are words that only she uses. Or words she made up.
She says things with such consistent, passionate tone, that you laugh every time.
You love how she has managed to combine such self-assured, mature, confident strength with such soft, caring, self-deprecating kindness.
It is a personality combination that you admire.
And best of all, she loves you.
At a time when you are sometimes forgetting that you are strong and brave and interesting and worth listening to, she tells you that you are.
She wants to hear more stories.
She never appears bored or distracted.
She laughs at things you didn’t realise were jokes.
She thinks the things you do just because you are you, are brave and inspiring.
She makes you feel better about everything.
About where you are, who you are and what you want.
She helps you feel less alone.
Most importantly she makes you feel, simultaneously, rescued and like you don’t need rescuing.
There is no judgement. There is accountability, there is love, there is goddamn fabulous ideas and glorious rambling trains-of-thought but there is no time to feel less than.
Time warps and slows and extends and you spend time apart and more time together.
And your friendship deepens.
You get to that point where you can’t remember a time when you were not friends, let alone didn’t even know the other existed, even if it were merely months ago.
You talk about the big things.
You talk about the small things.
You talk about the things you’ve been telling yourself are small but actually are not.
You share good food, you drink good wine, you go on adventures.
You talk about the universe, the stars, the numbers, the conspiracies.
What does it all mean?
And sometimes you have to say a physical goodbye.
Because this is the nature of travel and countries and the world, we don’t always live near the people we love.
And you try to write something to this person to thank them for existing.
To thank them for taking care of you and supporting you.
To thank them for loving you.
And it’s tricky sometimes, to say all that, to write all that.
We don’t talk enough about how fundamental and life-changing friendships can be.
People often ask if ‘you’ve met someone?’ and they always mean romantically.
But you don’t have to be romantic with someone to fall in another kind of love with them.
In fact ‘meeting someone’ is not always what you need.
A solid, eye-opening, unapologetic, loving friendship is what you needed.
You may have been metaphorically or geographically lost, or both.
And you needed a kindred spirit friendship then, and probably forever.
And you walked into each other lives.
And you’re saying hell yes.
And you are so fucking grateful.
And you love them.
And you wonder why we don’t talk about friendship love enough.
Because it is just as exciting as romantic love.
You tell your parents about them, you want to show them where you’re from.
You want them to meet your family, your friends.
You want to share your life with them.
And if you’re lucky, you probably will.
Sarelizah xx
