This morning, I read a beautiful post by Laura Fenamore, entitled My Dream Team: The Support System We All Need (and Can Have!)
Laura talks about her personal journey, and how she couldn’t have made it without the network of friends, mentors and professionals who have supported, encouraged and loved her along the way.
Our stories are very different, but understandably perhaps, this made me think of my own dream team. The people who are there to listen, to guide, to make me laugh, to offer a shoulder and to make my life better somehow.
In some ways, oddly, the process made me quite sad. This should have been a moment for happiness and gratitude, but it was also a time for inward reflection.
You see, many of the names I expected to be there, glittering in lights at the top of this list, were nowhere to be found. These people, who I spent the most time with when I was well, who I went out with most nights, seem to have become bored by me having to turn down invitations and cutting down on drinking. I genuinely thought that some of these friends would have taken a little bit of time out of their admittedly busy schedules to come over for dinner occasionally, or drive the 20 minutes to come visit, but no. Unfortunately, most have scattered like leaves in the wind. The flow of invitations has now slowed to a crawl, and the texts to see how I am have stopped almost completely.
If they were just party friends, I may understand. I mean, we all have people who are just there for fun times. But these are people who shared my world, and I theirs. The people I would drop everything and drive to at 3am when they had their heart broken, or who I kept topped up with coffee and helped study when they had important exams to cram for. People I loved.
It’s sad. But in the incredibly cheesy words of Whitney Houston (may she rest in peace)…
It’s not right, but it’s OK. I’m gonna make it anyway…
You see, this last year, which has been one of the most trying of my pretty tumultuous life, has taught me a lot. It’s been a time for me to grow up, and change my priorities. It’s been a time for me to recognise and appreciate the good in life, rather than just the fun stuff. And it’s seen the emergence (or recognition) of my real dream team, which is packed with some unexpected, yet excellent friends who don’t care if I am out dancing on tables or at home under a slanket watching a movie for the third time. Whoever I am, they love me anyway.
And isn’t that just wonderful?
Some of these friends are people I have met “online”, in one form or another. Some were on Twitter, before this new bout of illness struck, who it turned out that I had common interests, and even a shared history with (it’s funny who you bump into on social networks that used to live 2 roads from you, or who you went clubbing with back in the day). Others were people I “met” while working as a community manager, whose lives I came to know in detail before meeting them in person. Either way, these are people I now know well and who have become hugely important to me in real life. Their support and kindness, sometimes in the face of their own adversity, fills me with hope and light and often drags me out of a dark place when I’m awake in the middle of the night, crying in pain and the rest of the world is sleeping.
The old me would have scoffed at the thought of meeting people online. I would have seen it as sad, somehow. Not anymore. Now, I rejoice in tales of how people talked on twitter for years and are now best friends, or how couples are getting married after meeting on MSF. The lines between the online and offline world have become blurred, and this new way of forming bonds has become absolutely normal; Online dating is now the second most common way couples meet, and twitter and other social networks unite people in all locations.
Other, wonderful members of my support network are friends that I knew before, but had lost touch with, or whom I didn’t necessarily consider to be “besties”. However, once times got a little harder and the good-time-girls scattered, these amazing people showed up; ready to listen, to laugh with, to share stories of their day or a cup of tea with when I’m lively enough to leave the house, or most importantly, just to care.
Of course, there is also my boyfriend. He who puts up with so much, and who offers a cuddle when I feel lost, and who rubs my back when I can’t stand (he knows the sore bits by heart now). I know that it breaks his heart that so many of the people we both expected to step up did, in fact, step away, but we have no choice other than to focus on the positives, and understand that this is the way of the world. Not everyone is strong enough to stick things out when they get tough.
Referring again to social media, and the network that no-one really loves, this whole experience has made me see life a little bit life Google+. We are surrounded by hundreds of people, but not everyone can be our best friend. So we find circles for people. Some are acquaintances. Some are the people who were once our closest friends, but are now not…and some are the people who would happily come and visit for a slice of cake rather than going out and getting drunk, because they just want to spend time with YOU. People will change circles all the time, and we must accept that. No-one continues on the same journey forever, after all. If we find friends who are still interested in ours while they’re out following theirs? They’re the good ones.
So yes, while it is sad that some people have not been as great as they could have been, this has also been an incredibly good lesson for me. You can’t expect people to be there, no matter how much you want them to be. But you can appreciate love and care for the ones who do show up – and sometimes, support comes from directions you don’t expect.
My dream team, my support network, is fabulous. Each and every person who picks up the phone and sends a message of support; who asks how I am; who answers a tweet when I’m in pain; who accepts that I sometimes have to cancel plans, who offers up their spare room so I can go and stay for a while and have a break from these 4 walls and who understands that I have to find other things to do than get pissed (because drink and the medication I am on can be deadly) means the world to me. Sometimes, I just need someone to hold my hand and reassure me that things will be OK, and I have a lot of otters who will do just that.
Despite everything, I count myself VERY lucky. My dream team circle is full, and that’s all a girl can ask for.
x
