In 2020, I thought a lot about how friendships thrive, survive or die

Published on 7 December 2020

If friendship was a garden, mine would be a shrinking grove. It’s a thing of beauty and a source of joy but it demands strenuous tending in order to thrive. I have as much time for friendships as I do for gardening.

In my thirties, all my time now goes to family and career. Any time that’s left for tending to friendships is time that’s borrowed. If I wanted more time for friends, I literally have to pay for it. There’s a £12-15 price tag for every hour that a sitter looks after my children.

If friendship was a garden, several plants would have died from a drought, from neglect or from unaddressed issues that fester like root rot. Let’s take a look at some of the remaining vegetation.

There’s a flowering lantana (lantana camara) bush. What looks like a blossom is actually a cluster of tiny florets, bound together so tightly it resembles a clenched fist. The shade of butterscotch brings to mind the gingham skirt of my high school uniform. To cling closely to one’s clique was the only way to survive the halls of an all-girls private school in Manila in the 1990s (or anywhere, I suspect, at any time). Our group was inseparable — we walked through the school halls as a pack and kept an eagle eye over each other’s drinks to prevent roofies at raves we were too young to attend. It was a sisterhood, which mattered to girls like me who didn’t have sisters or have big female figures in their lives. There was no dramatic end to these friendships, just a natural drifting away as we went to different universities. Like lantana flowers torn from the plant, we were scattered in all four directions, never to be bound to the cluster again.

In a corner is a Zanzibar gem (zamioculcas zamiifolia), tenacious as cacti. Its waxy leaves and luxuriantly glossy stalks are often mistaken for plastic. Zanzibar gems are popular in workplaces because of their ability to thrive with little water and artificial lighting. Growing attached to an office plant is like becoming friends with a colleague. You see each other every day, have zero interest in making a personal connection and yet it happens. Who else outside this work circle can understand the industry acronyms, office codespeak, and case histories. It’s tedious to talk about work with one’s romantic partner because of all the context you have to give. A natural bond forms between anyone who has gone through the workplace version of hell together.

A Zanzibar gem will die from the most obvious but ironic of reasons – water. It can handle neglect but succumbs to root rot when it's zealously over-watered. Like the Zanzibar gem, office friendships usually wither as a result of the most obvious but ironic of reasons – work. This is what I realised in my 30s — office friendships, no matter how deep, will always have the work aspect ingrained in its DNA.

I’ve decided to plant nasturtium, zinnia, and sweet peas on a little patch of grass by the pavement in front of our home. Soon enough, I’ll see if they sprout. There’s no guarantee but there is hope. It’s not unlike the feeling of meeting someone you really get on with – there’s so much promise.

I felt that promise when I lived in Washington, DC. I’d struck up a conversation with another girl in the queue for the once-every-five-year costume sale of the National Opera. She was wearing a cowboy-hat and carrying an artist’s satchel. We had so much in common — friends who thought it was weird to queue for hours for costumes; worry about the politics of our countries, as well as creativity outside our careers (painting for her, writing for me). We swapped numbers and believed we’d stay in touch. When it was our turn to enter the opera warehouse, we were separated by the enthusiastic melee that set upon the glitter, tulle, and masks. I told myself that I’d send a message next week or the week after until it became embarrassingly too late to do so.

Today, I can’t even remember her name.

She never made it into the garden. She stayed in that pavement patch in front of the house where I nurture new acquaintances. For instance, the group of new mothers who I met during prenatal yoga and have continued to meet up with and rely on now that the babies have been born. It’s hard to define what these women are in my life. Our camaraderie is hinged on nothing but our tots.

But these women have heard me say things that even my best friends — all of whom don’t have children yet — have only heard watered down versions of. I enjoy talking about my kids. They are babies, Young Pioneers of the Earth, who are tasting apples and feeling blades of grass on their feet for the very first time and as their mother can’t help but marvel at all this. But only the yoga mums can listen to me say these things without eyes glazing over the moment I say developmental leap. I don’t know if I have the capacity to make any more best friends but what I do know is that these women are a consoling, positive force in my life right now.

And that maybe that’s enough.

My garden of friendships is a shrinking grove but I’m fighting for whatever is left. There are plants in there that are even more precious than any groups I have mentioned so far… my 2 best friends whom I’ve known since I was 6 or the pal who has traveled to see me every year of the decade since we left grad school.

I make time.
I plan ahead.
I nurture them like I would a garden.

I wish I had acres, but life has shrunk that garden into a small space where only the hardiest, most beloved plants remain.