1 week Ago By Zahra Amiruddin
It’s Saturday night, and the house is fairly silent. Apart from the microwave beeping incessantly, there isn’t a sound, and I’m revelling in the euphoria of having an evening with no plans. Suddenly, my phone starts to flash and the words “Ruch Puch Calling” bring me a familiar sense of ease.
My friend from college is now heading home from an evening at the plant nursery in Dublin, and it happens to be our spontaneous (planned several times and missed) monthly catch-up call. “I’m going to have strawberries in my backyard soon, and remember the tomato plant that reached my ceiling last year?” she says excitedly. Ruchi then begins to weed her garden, as we talk for two hours about our jobs, travel plans and the ex who finally managed to find eternal love.
While the conversations might have evolved since our twenties, we still hold nostalgia for the time we braved together. Somewhere between late night in India and evening in Ireland, two old friends meet their old selves. As someone who has lived in the same city her whole life, I have encountered my fair share of heartache with my best friends moving away.
As a result, I am now in several long-distance friendships, right from Goa and Delhi to Washington DC and San Francisco. In a quest to find time for one another across several time zones, my friends and I have learnt to build a sense of understanding and nurturing that was absent in our twenties. I have found that the long spells of silence rarely mean that the friendship has faded but rather evolved to hold space for those silences.
The internet is full of lists and features about how hard it is to maintain friendships in your thirties, but I’ve found that with the right group of pals, it has only become easier. I say this because I remember the sleepless nights in my twenties when my core group moved away. At a time when you’re still navigating life’s many mysteries and everything is a lot more overwhelming, the comfort of friends brings a sense of grounding.
With that security gone, there was so much more left to figure out alone. But now, I accompany those same friends on video calls during their morning coffee runs, as they walk their dogs and complain about the reorganisation of their local supermarkets. Did we try to make it a routine? Yes.
Did it always work? No. But I think the acceptance of the change in the relationship and making space for it despite geographical differences is what makes it successful. It was something that I processed over my call with Ruchi as well.
Since she lives so far away from home, family and her childhood friends, her trips to India are her “life check-ins,” as she puts it. The concentrated periods spent during long stayovers and endless catch-up days are what recharge her and are impossible to replicate through quick dinners and lunches with friends who live in the same city. Counselling psychologist Dr Stashia D’Souza agrees with this and states that it is, in fact, easier to nurture long-distance friendships because as family and work take centre-stage, there is a lack of availability in our ‘every day.
’ It also helps that technology has made the physicality of a person through voice and facial expressions far more accessible and realistic. In the much talked about season finale of The White Lotus season 3, Laurie (Carrie Coon) breaks down during an epiphany with her childhood friends. “I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning.
Because time gives it meaning,” she says. It is quite possibly the only dialogue that elicited something within me throughout the entire season. The people we choose to give our time to are a large part of adult friendships since they drop off more easily than the friends you run in the same circles with.
For journalist Anubhuti Matta, distance gave her all the perspective she needed about relationships that didn’t matter. “I suppose because of other bonds that are more consistent in your life and situations that aren’t merely fleeting, you are comfortable letting unimportant relationships pass,” she says. Entrepreneur Kajoli Puri believes that we often pedestalise being overburdened and not having the time to call our friends because we’re so committed to preserving our energy—often to our own detriment.
Additionally, she points out that while technology has allowed long-distance friendships to bloom, it has also become the thorn that maims. “Earlier, if I wanted to find out a recipe or try to remember the lyrics of a song, I’d pick up the phone and make a quick call to a close friend,” she recalls. “Now, I just google it.
Those 3-minute calls rarely exist and rob us of spontaneous moments of connection.” Three weeks after my pandemic wedding and moving away from my family home, I had an unexpected breakdown during dinner with my husband. The overwhelming shift made me think of all the conversations I had had with my best friends about this major life event and the fact that they couldn’t be there.
The next morning, I received a handwritten postcard from a friend across the Pacific Ocean. Seeing the familiar curves in her penmanship felt like a warm hug. Later that day, my school Whatsapp group began blowing up with exciting updates about Gaya, a new puppy, and Luna, a new kitten.
Avril Lavigne was blasting out of the speakers in my new home, reminding me of the friends who screamed the lyrics to ‘Sk8er Boi’ with me. My husband was bathed in 5pm light that illuminated the dining table, a perfect spot for coffee and gossip with a friend who would visit in the future. Life had changed, but I was certain that some things were going to remain the same.
Also read: My queer friendships have seen me through euphoric wins and crushing tragedies 5 signs you’re in a one-sided friendship Female friendships are the softest yet strongest force this world has ever seen.
