Day 30: International Day of Friendship

So this is an official “day” but I’d like to shout out some of my incredible friends:

Yinka, Emma, Misty, Ruth, Edd, Dan, Harriet, Kenda, Sarahs, Beth, Louise, Carol, Dom, Ruth, Jodie, Jenn.

And, of course, my best friend—Joe. My husband.

(I know I’ve probably missed out some people I’m sorry my brain is a foggy sieve.)

Funny thing about this list: it would never have existed a decade or so ago.

I didn’t know how to do friends. I struggled to make them and keep them. I have no friends from school, like many people seem to have (although I am in touch with one brilliant human on social media). Nor from uni.

My social skills were low and social anxiety was high. I wasn’t hated; just awkward. And I struggled to relate to other people, especially other girls and women.

Now look how many incredible female friends I have. (And two incredible gay men.) There’s nothing quite like female friendships.

The media would have us believe women are always competing and fighting with each other, for men, or power.

I get that. From the age of birth, girls are sexualised and turned into objects for the male gaze. And power has traditionally been limited to straight white old dudes, so there was this belief that we had to scrap for it.

Not so. As I’ve been learning from some of the incredible Black women I know, there is enough for everyone and we can build our own damn table. And we do not need to emulate what’s gone before; we do not need proximity to current power to find and use our own.

There are other forms of power, and friendship is one of them. We can lift each other up so we all rise at once; it’s not me OR you. It’s me AND you.

What does friendship mean to you?

Set a timer for 5 minutes and write.

Enjoy!

Happy writing!

TTFN,

Vicky

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