To say I was uncharacteristically apprehensive to meet a friend for a socially distanced coffee would be a huge understatement.
Sure, I was excited to catch up with her, hear all about her new flame and their seemingly Austenian dates governed by restrictive lockdown rules that somehow intensified their chemistry, about what TV she’d binged recently, what books, takeaways.
But at the same time it all felt, as I walked to the spot where we’d agreed to meet (wondering whether I’d get there first or she would, or both at the same time, rehearsing what I’d say in any of the possible scenarios the next few minutes threatened to present, wondering which would materialise, which would melt into nothing)… a lot. Like, a lot a lot.
In normal circumstances I’m a very sociable person. I love to talk and laugh and drink large glasses of rose; I’m funny, at least that’s what my friends tell me, and am known best (or, more likely, worst) for almost involuntarily spitting out witty retorts the second I spot someone’s words widen into a window humour can rush into, like laughter.
I just bloody love it. There’s nothing better than a room filled with friends each marvelling in their own way at their improbable good fortune that they should all be alive at the same time and in the same place, together, here, now.
But when me and my friend coincided in a street leading up to the spot we’d arranged to meet at for our socially distanced coffee (a scenario for which I was not, despite it all, prepared) I couldn’t believe the awkward somersault of words I could hear pouring from my mouth. It was like I was watching myself unravel, my inner voice shouting “Jesus Lauren, have you forgotten how to fucking talk?!”.
A ball of intense, excited energy I got us two heavily caffeinated coffees – a solid choice, clearly – and we went to sit nearby. As we sipped them, cold hands cradled around the near-scalding cardboard, I felt myself calming down. I relaxed into myself, reinhabiting my body and mind instead of watching in open-mouthed disbelief from some distance as I tried on a self I hadn’t worn for months and which felt severely shrunken in the wash.
Just as I’d stopped overtly monitoring what I was saying, though, I caught myself – like a cardigan on a door knob just passed – on something I’d said. Something akin to a shiver came over me and I realised I’d said something in a tone of voice I hadn’t adopted in so long, a turn of phrase that was off the cuff, spontaneous, funny even. I can’t remember exactly what it was, just the revelation.
Over the previous months a creeping feeling of dull, leaden ennui had been dragging me down, but the way I’d been articulating it to myself (“I miss my friends”) never felt full enough of an explanation. In that moment with my friend, though, it occurred to me that I hadn’t realised just how much I’d missed the person I am when I’m with them.
Maybe you’re thinking I sound cocky and big-headed. But don’t we all love our friends deeply not only for who they are, but for who they enable us to be in their company: namely, ourselves? I’d missed the people who draw out the parts of myself I want to rinse in sunshine and realised that in missing them I was missing myself, too.
Afterwards I felt a certain sadness. How could I not even have known that one of the reasons I’d been feeling so down was because a part of me I cherished and cultivated was lying dormant? At what precise point over the past few months had this happened, and how hadn’t I felt it?
Yet as I rounded the corner towards home I felt her there, me, waking up, quieter than usual but excited and hopeful, ready to cause some mischief as soon as the time came.