Friendships
I am so late to the party with reading Dolly Alderton’s memoir Everything I know About Love. My first thought as a I read it was, thank goodness my teens and twenties were done minus a smartphone and social media! I resonated with a lot of Dolly’s antics having been to a North London girls’ school myself. Much of that life I lived then, has shaped who I am now. I was a boarder from a young age, my friends were my absolute everything, it really was a true sisterhood, whilst it wasn’t always perfect or pretty it was the setting of a tone for just how important my female friendships are to me, the shaping of some core values which have influenced every new chapter I’ve experienced in life.
Dolly learnt to love through the beauty of female friendship and the book struck a chord with me as everywhere I have lived, over time I have created the most extraordinary friendships with amazing women who become like my family. That said living a transient life has a downside it can be exhausting to start again and again, it takes time to nurture those relationships, sometimes you just don’t hit it finding your tribe but other times you meet the most wonderful, amazing people, when you say goodbye to them you wonder how you’ll get by, you feel it in every single bone of your body!
When you live in the Middle East or Asia there is a common bond of being an expatriate. Depending on the age and stage you are in life it can provide a variety of challenges. You are more likely to find someone who understands what you’ve left behind and or how hard it is to be the new person. The systems are in place - if you have a family the school help you, everyone knows someone, who knows someone, you find the connectors within your community who make you feel welcome, and it can be very inclusive. It doesn’t mean that you suddenly have a ready-made friendship group nor is it easy, you are however set up for success. It’s a matter of strapping in for the ride I often liken it to your first year at university there’s a lot of saying yes to everything before you can say no!
I thought of my most recent move to NZ and how challenging it was starting from ground zero in the local community we chose to live in. Going from living in Dubai a hub to global destinations to living on the other side of the world was very isolating! I never realised how hard it would be to have no history with anyone particularly anyone who knew my boys since they were babies. It was like our whole history had been erased, I found that heavy, I felt vulnerable, so sad and wracked with guilt over the decision to move to NZ.
Interestingly I am however now probably the most settled I’ve been in a long time and once again that’s through the power of my female friendships globally and locally. I also committed to working on myself. There’s always more to learn! I was open to doing things differently this time. I’ve also accepted that what happened, happened and it created some amazing opportunities and experiences for us as a family and that despite the challenges we’ve faced it doesn’t mean that our lives are no longer full of endless exciting possibilities.
The one piece of advice to hold on to as you start again is knowing you’ve done it before so you can do it again. One of my now great friends who I met at a random event must have been a mind reader as she sensed my struggles and said something to me that stuck. I hung on to it all the time. She said what I had had previously had with my friends would come again but it would take time, it would suddenly appear over time as I shared collective experiences and got to know people doing the simplest of things time and time again. The work I have done and the patience I have mastered has enabled me to carve out individual friendships that are meaningful and allow me to turn up authentically as myself, I am no longer trying to fit in, I am happy just to be. That is the gold! That’s what I love about working with clients as when you get that aha moment it’s transformative.
Disclaimer! I was very fortunate when I moved to New Zealand as there are a group of friends who I knew in Dubai. We don’t all live near each other, but some are close enough for regular catch ups. Without them I could have been on a flight to anywhere to escape the sadness. It’s always worth seeking anyone who you have a connection with, it could open up doors for you and make your transition a lot smoother.
