Friendeavours: Now Is The Time To Reconnect With Old Friends

I’m not saying I’m a woman on the edge, but I almost bought an inflatable hot tub, just to mix up the days. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been enjoying the Zoom dinner parties and 20-way conference- watches of Fleabag Live, and I respect that staying in is the greatest act of love we can perform during a pandemic of this nature, but the sheer goddamn hugless, publess, weirdness of life right now cannot be underestimated.

I bumped into a friend by chance in the street the other day, both out on our one allotted form of daily exercise, and the natural instinct to hug her was so strong I rocked back and forth on my feet, jittering and wobbling, before we both cracked up. I feel like a dog that has been trained to resist its urges but still salivates when it sees a steak on the dining table. Sorry, that friend, for comparing you to a steak. I mean it in the most delicious way.

Various friend-related things are keeping the blues and the bonkers at bay. The random things friends say that articulate my muddy feelings. Like when my friend Alex described this stage of the lockdown as being like the end of a long flight:

‘Your legs are aching, you’ve watched all the films you want to watch, the kids are freaking out, and not even alcohol holds any allure any more because you’ve drunk that much of it...’ Yep.

But here’s a thing. Often the regular channels of friendships are the most reliable; other times, something comes out of the blue and turns your head right around. Take yesterday. I was sitting in bed trying to work (my husband and three-year- old were watching YouTube in the lounge; don’t @ me, it’s educational) when my phone rang. I looked at it. I’m the kind of person who gets a pang of anxiety every time the phone rings. My rational side knows I should relax and be myself, especially if it’s a friend. But I have an emotional hangover from being a teenager who wrote ACTUAL LISTS of interesting things to say on the phone (‘My sister had an injection today! My cat brought in a vole!’) because I was so afraid of being boring, or dumbstruck by the pressure to perform. I’d sit by the landline in my parents’ house, my list trembling in my hand, as I dialled the number of a friend or boyfriend, ready to reel off my spiel.

Anyway, the name on the phone yesterday was that of a friend I hadn’t spoken to for a while – a year maybe. Dee and I used to live together in London and she’d been on my mind lately. A lot of old friends have, but Dee especially because she had a baby last year and I was meant to have met her daughter a few weeks ago. Her crossed-out name in my diary made me sad, and I’d meant to get in touch. But when she called, I hesitated. Was I in the right mental place for a big interaction?

I answered before I gave it any more thought. And I was SO glad I did. Dee and I clicked back in. We talked about new motherhood and how hard it is at the best of times. ‘It’s like the circle of life is completed but we’re not dead,’ said Dee. I remembered one of her superpowers: words of zany brilliance. I sat on my bed, talking to her, staring at the leather rucksack she’d got me for my birthday the year after we moved out, and felt myself lifting from my funk. I felt so healed by reconnecting. Make that call. Take that call.