Call On Their Birthday

Credit @Sophie Boyes

By Erin Deborah 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my friends. Having just moved back to London, I am both the closest and furthest I have ever been to them. Closest because, for the first time, most of us are condensed in the same city; but furthest because London has never seemed quite so, well, big.

While I will always go the extra mile for the people I love, young professional life in the city makes for fewer simple moments. I find myself missing the lazy mornings spent together, the ease of friendship in the pre-adult world. Instead, I am navigating an increasingly hectic working schedule, more hours than I would like spent on trains (although, I confess, I feel complaining about the Tube is purely a Londoner’s right of passage, since a self-professed bookworm like myself will never regret a journey spent reading), and, quite simply, not enough time. 

As I enter the next phase of my life, I often wonder about how to be the best friend I can be. I guess it’s about finding ways to show how much my friends are appreciated, valued, in a period increasingly devoid of time together. And for all of us, I think, that means something entirely different. 

Someone told me none of his friends called him on his birthday this year and it broke my heart.

What he doesn’t know is that I did have my phone in front of me on that day, oscillating between interrupting his peace with my petty love of birthdays, and just leaving him be. He seemed so unbothered about the magnitude of the day. 

Scared of assuming that everyone else wants love shown the same way I do, of placing my own expectations onto others, I felt like I’d be expressing my friendship in the way that I want, not the way he does. I didn’t want to be too much.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot. How I let my own fear of being too much hold me back from being myself. Had I listened to myself, I would have picked up the phone. 

He might not have answered. He might have rolled his eyes while listening to me voice my own thoughts and feelings, yet again. He might have felt it was too much. He probably would have just smiled.

But it wouldn’t have mattered how he reacted. It’s about him, and all my friends, being deserving of the love I wanted to show, but chose not to. Our seemingly inconsequential actions can feel hurtful, can make others feel alone, when really it just says more about our own preoccupations. As we become more overwhelmed with life, it is important to find little ways to show our gratitude and appreciation for those who are most important to us, in the individual ways each of us know how. 

Next time, Erin, listen to yourself, pick up the damn phone, and just call.