Thank you for this. I’m an American living in Camberwell (pajama friends distance, I’m just saying). I’ve been here for 9 years and have been through a real cycle. I felt this same ache when I arrived for about two years. I moved not knowing a soul and had to work hard to find friends. I did and for the next five or so years those friendships deepened extraordinarily. Now, many of those friends have moved -- Columbia, for the sun; San Diego, for a job; NYC, for a husband’s work assignment; etc etc.
I still have friends here, a lot via my wife, and my weekends are full, but I feel like they are ground floor friendship not pajama ones yet.
Thank you Jeffrei for this comment - it's lovely to feel that you relate and also, congratulations on making a success of London as an American! I think it's much harder that way round than for Brits flocking to the US. I'm glad your weekends are full and I like that concept of 'ground floor friendship' that may in time graduate to pyjama ones
This resonates and I know this ache. Just after I turned thirty a little over a decade ago I made a couple of decisions - one immediate, one growing (or not) - and though I didn’t know it at the time, I now realise that many individuals I considered close friends were merely friends by the peculiar, stifling (suffocating?) circumstance. I grieve not for the people but the feeling that I was living a life that wasn’t my own and that, perhaps this intimacy was ersatz. And when I see them I feel a sense of a self that was painfully trying to fit in to someone else’s expectation of my life. I find myself writing letters in my head to some of those people to say thank you. And to say goodbye. Sometimes it hurts too much to linger in the shadows of that which once seemed so great but perhaps was just an illusion .
Such an honest, warm and vulnerable account. A spontaneous day with a good friend is such a rare joy these days. I had one back in May and I felt so light and joyful, but such days are few and far between.
Thank you for this. I’m an American living in Camberwell (pajama friends distance, I’m just saying). I’ve been here for 9 years and have been through a real cycle. I felt this same ache when I arrived for about two years. I moved not knowing a soul and had to work hard to find friends. I did and for the next five or so years those friendships deepened extraordinarily. Now, many of those friends have moved -- Columbia, for the sun; San Diego, for a job; NYC, for a husband’s work assignment; etc etc.
I still have friends here, a lot via my wife, and my weekends are full, but I feel like they are ground floor friendship not pajama ones yet.
Thank you Jeffrei for this comment - it's lovely to feel that you relate and also, congratulations on making a success of London as an American! I think it's much harder that way round than for Brits flocking to the US. I'm glad your weekends are full and I like that concept of 'ground floor friendship' that may in time graduate to pyjama ones
This resonates and I know this ache. Just after I turned thirty a little over a decade ago I made a couple of decisions - one immediate, one growing (or not) - and though I didn’t know it at the time, I now realise that many individuals I considered close friends were merely friends by the peculiar, stifling (suffocating?) circumstance. I grieve not for the people but the feeling that I was living a life that wasn’t my own and that, perhaps this intimacy was ersatz. And when I see them I feel a sense of a self that was painfully trying to fit in to someone else’s expectation of my life. I find myself writing letters in my head to some of those people to say thank you. And to say goodbye. Sometimes it hurts too much to linger in the shadows of that which once seemed so great but perhaps was just an illusion .
This was a breathtakingingly good read!! Wow so many truths - I could feel the ache leaping off the page and can relate! Love you Is xo
Awww I love you. Please move back to London to ease my ache xxx
see you in December baby and we will be in PJs!
Such an honest, warm and vulnerable account. A spontaneous day with a good friend is such a rare joy these days. I had one back in May and I felt so light and joyful, but such days are few and far between.