Member-only story
‘they’ say you should write when you feel a thing, don’t wait. I’m not waiting.
I just said this sentence out loud as tears slowly emerged, pushed by a rising swelling in my chest. I don’t think these tears offer me a release, though objectively I know that is the theory, and it’s not a traumatic happening wracked with physicality and wretchedness, it’s just a great wave of gratitude for the people in my life but somehow tinged with sadness. These are not wholly happy tears.
Yesterday was a beautiful, emotional, (probably) pivotal day in my life and reflecting on it just now, unintentionally because I’m supposed to be writing reports for work, I was struck by love.
The Greeks have many words for love, I think this wave was Philia — deep friendship. Some of it Pragma — longstanding love. I don’t know why I want to clarify the type of love that I am feeling, but I have.
Yesterday was spent walking for hours in the sunshine around lush, tall, height-of-the-season greenery with a good friend. We haven’t done this before, they were guiding me, I was trusting them, we pushed ourselves, shared secrets, sorry tales of romance gone wrong, friendship gone right and pandemic frustrations. We both have a love of stories, the fiction kind, but we also both weave a good tale of real life experiences. I felt a deepening of our connection and it was comfortable rather than something to be wary of which is a feeling I’ve had many times, with many people, when they dare to try and get closer.
When I got home I was due to have a conversation with another friend about our friends-with-benefits situation that we’d sort of started but was not really going anywhere. I kind of knew this was likely to be an ending, hoped it wouldn’t be, but picked them up with an open mind and went for a walk. We had an hour and a half of open, vulnerable chat about us, their recently expired relationship, how this all fits together (or not) and how we want our relationship to be. It was a respectful, caring conversation with emotion and tears, and love. I realised later that this meant so much to me because having such intimate conversations has become rare, and even rarer with a man; it was refreshing, it was new, and it was vulnerable. And there’s nothing more attractive and connectable, for me…
