A Kind of Friendship

This is my story of a teenage friendship that only took place on the way to school. Unlikely really given it was thirty minutes a day at the most and it was between the beautiful girl and the plain Jane. Like fish and cake a weird concept to put together yet surprisingly it worked.

Hope walked to school in her brand new navy, blue kickers with the little real leather tag hanging from each symmetrical laced up shoe. She threw her newly styled blond hair over her shoulder with a measured walk, her hands lying in her pockets thumbs peaking above the edge in her fitted school blazer.

She definitely exuded confident poise in a smile so bright that the day was dark around her. I always felt a certain amount of admiration for Hope as I walked beside her. We were 16 and as she shone I dulled in her shadow, uncomfortable in my skirt below the knee with the embarrassing one pleat down the middle that my mother said “made me look smart” and which I knew made me look like Miss Marple. Whilst she raised her eyes to the road ahead I ambled alongside her, head down contemplating my “sensible” shoes as though they were some new fashionable shoe not the boring black that they really were. Hope talked a lot, I didn’t mind much. She talked about going to play tennis at the weekend, holidaying in Spain, becoming a model, and boys—the ones she liked and the ones who liked her. I listened and thought about my weekend, listening to Fleetwood Mac in my bedroom surrounded by my paints and paper, going to church on Sunday and all the boys I liked and all the same boys that did not like me. I learned fairly quickly that I would rather listen than talk. After all who would want to listen to my boring life?

Hope was the shimmering mistress and I her plain companion. How could I not feel jealous of her clear skin and twinkling eyes? Sometimes I would feel hot, unkind envy pricking my skin. This feeling made me feel sad because Hope was actually an alright person. As I write these adult words now I understand her gift of self-awareness, or so it seemed. She knew of her beauty but she was not cruel. There was no Maleficent syndrome going on in her life. Therefore I endured a silent acceptance of how my life was to be. Even now I feel grateful for her friendship. Dowdy me in my “smart clothes” that wore me and never rose above my knee. Oh and did say I was ginger?

She talked about her friend Felicity who lived in Jesmond in Newcastle (the posh part of town) that she played tennis with and how they dreamed of becoming models whilst their families holidayed together. I never met Felicity but I imagined her as a rather snooty blond and pretty, of course.

Hope and Felicity lived glamorous, exciting lives. In the 1980s it was glamorous to holiday in Spain, to be good looking enough to consider becoming models, and as for playing tennis? Well Hope and I lived in a mining village where the prominent sport was pigeon racing for the older people. So yes driving off to Jesmond for the weekend to play tennis was not only glamorous but extraordinary.

Secretly I longed to live an exciting life and to be popular like Hope. I was a very good daydreamer, afternoon and night dreamer too. I imagined myself dating boys, special boys, that Hope had gone out with. I imagined being a famous artist and attending extravagant parties with other beautiful people.

In my dreams Hope was my rival in love and as in dreams anything is possible, so the boy always chose me. In reality I was the messenger who would ask a boy out on a date for Hope. Once it really hurt having to ask Paul if he would like to go out with her. Of course he said yes and of course I was depressed. He was my secret crush since he became the new boy at school. I wonder now how powerful was our friendship that my loyalty went beyond my own happiness?

This began as a story about rivalry but maybe it is about loneliness and feeling needed. Hope didn’t have many girl friends at school. I didn’t have many friends at school. Fish and cake. I was the fish awkwardly struggling on the shore and she was the cake too good to eat. We complimented each other. I allowed her to shine because I was so dull. I felt like I was a needed companion on the walk to school. For about thirty minutes a day I had a solution for my loneliness. Was Hope ever lonely, I ask myself now. When I was 16, I would have said “definitely not!”

My early teenage years were difficult. I was naturally introverted. Kind people called me “shy,” cruel people called me “mute” and “McVities” after the makers of the ginger nut biscuits. I lacked self-confidence and self-belief. My attributes were a negative blight whilst Hope’s attributes embodied success and happiness as she wandered the school corridors in her willow like thinness, beauty and confidence.

I soon became a prisoner to my observations that were distorted by my teenage insecurities. Success and happiness. I thought that they came together. My loneliness was a desert and I wanted the oasis, the paradise I wanted to live out my dreams. Acting on this unconscious decision the first thing I did was to go on a diet eradicating sweet treats. I then became obsessed with weighing myself after exercising until I was happy with my self- punishment.

Once again my adult eyes observe my teenage self. I was obsessed with external appearances. I was ignorant to the power of my own internal world. If I had had the wisdom to feed my own internal world and have trust in myself I would have recognised where true happiness lies.

After school I never saw Hope again. She became a distant memory as I went to art college, although I soon found myself dropping out after less than a year of study, because I was continually looking outwards at the other students and comparing myself to them. This time I was humbled by their amazing talent and overwhelmed by my feelings of inadequacy and as I believed it to be, my lack of talent. I was 19 and unable to nurture my own talent because it came from my inner self. The person I was unable to recognise.

When I was 25 my first child was born. Suddenly my world had grown as I grew with it or perhaps into it. I was not going to be thin anymore. I was going to become a mother. I remember feeling scared and even dreading getting baby fat. I was still obsessing about my body image. Yet I also remember a feeling of achievement and excitement for the coming of my (and my husband’s) creation. Sadly—no devastatingly—Robert died when he was 3-months-old. He was born premature which lead to complications in his health.

This story began with a friendship between two teenagers and has grown into a story about how I began to become a friend to myself. You see, to find a way through my grief, I had to understand that as mother to Robert I had not failed. I had done the best I could. When I was 32 I embarked on a counselling course where I studied the work of the psychotherapist Melanie Klein whose theory of “the good enough mother” was a crucial moment for me in accepting myself.

My grief lasted years. It was a time of questioning and reconciliation with the truth. I discovered eventually that I was able to bestow a kindness upon myself. This kindness was to believe that I was a “good enough mother.” This thought I carried around me like a sacred vessel and it impacted my whole life. I now believe that myself and every one can find happiness in accepting themselves in their physical form and their inner thoughts. That we will never be perfect and what is perfection? Look closely at your perfect ideal and there will be a flaw. As for success, it comes in many forms. The obvious is a life full of material riches but what about parents bringing up children to be considerate people or making a good meal for your family, or getting through one of the your worst days to get home and relax. Is this success? Are these valuable reasons to be happy?

Finally going back to my teenage years I believe I was good enough to be Hope’s friend because I was her friend. Each of us never walked alone to school. I was different to her but I had a right to fall in love and be loved and to like the way I looked with my red hair, freckles and strange clothes. It’s amusing how writing these words makes me smile.

Most importantly though I have learned that I am a thoughtful person, a person who likes to help people and that is my attribute, my inner strength. It is my route to happiness and dare I say success.