A love letter to my friends

Dear Friends,

I wanted to write to tell you that you are all brilliant. It might seem that we are all squirrelling away in our separate worlds, quietly making decisions to try and make the world better, but we’re not. We are all doing the same thing, bringing up our kids to be kind and treating those around us with care. 

I may not have seen you for ages or even talked to you much but I think about you all the time. I see how hard you are working and how well you deal with the the every day complexities of life. I also see the rubbish you put up with, the illnesses and the physical limitations of growing older.

The fact that you are still laughing and smiling and singing stupid songs to your kids makes me so proud to know you. And if you don’t have kids then I see how well you look after your nieces and nephews, the younger people in your life. That you carry on even through all the noise- climate change, ridiculous politics, the burden of history- is a credit to you. 

It feels like we are apart but we’re not. We share a whole language, a propensity for optimism, an appreciation of the absurd. We are childish in the best ways and teach the young people around us to be the same- to find wonder and beauty in the world. Every day we are trying to make something great, to stay creative and open to experience. To find happiness however we can.

I may not have seen you but you’re always with me- you are in everything I do. I hope you know that I see how well you’re doing. I hope you know how loved you are. 

x