To be and to have

When Sonja, my best friend and flatmate, arrived home last night, she could see that I was feeling blue. (Maybe not blue, more like a ‘mean red’ – agitated and exhausted and rather cheesed off). Without having to explain anything, she knew that my mood had been provoked by work. Sitting on my bed, our regular place of in-depth discussions, I explained my current career dilemma: feeling undervalued and under-stimulated, dreading walking through that 4th floor door every morning. Sonja listened patiently, as she always does, offered a few words of consolation but knew that, in reality, I can’t afford to quit. ‘You are just going to have to sit it out.’

We ate delicious curry on our balcony and listened to Patti Smith, the luminescent blue sky as our backdrop, and I tried to forget my worries… but they kept creeping back into my mind.

It took me hours to get to sleep and, when I finally did, I dreamt about work – about being criticised and talked about and mocked. I woke up feeling exhausted and deflated… and then I spotted a note under my door. The front of it read ‘My Dear Franky’ – in Sonja’s gently looped handwriting.

‘I can’t even imagine how hard it is for you right now… because of the person you are you will grow every day no matter what happens.’

Her heart-felt words brought tears to my eyes and made me realise that, no matter what happens in life, beautiful friends make everything bearable. So many people have interesting jobs and high salaries, but might never know what real friends are, much less know how to be a friend themselves.

Sonja’s letter went on to say ‘I wish I could be a better friend,’ not knowing that in this very utterance, she was embodying the essence of friendship. The best thing you can do for a friend, is to simply BE their friend.