Everything I Know About Love

ʻI mean...he's only away for a few days. Tknow, but I still miss himn when he's gone. And I get excited to see him, every time. Even if he just goes to the corner shop and comes back, I look forward to hearing the front door open again. She saw my frown. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true.

Your mum would clean the house before they came and they would talk about their children's coughs and plans for their hair. When we were kids, Farly once said to me: Promise we'll never get like that. Promise when we're fifty we'll be exactly the same with each other. I want us to sit on the sofa, stuffing our faces with crisps and talking about trash.

A reminder that no matter what we lose, no matter how uncertain and unpredictable life gets, some people really do walk next to you for ever.

I don't really care where I live when I'm older, I just want to live near you.

A week into my big New York adventure, I realized that places are kingdoms of memories and relationships; that the landscape is only ever a reflection of how you feel inside.

Farly squeezed my hand underneath the table twice, fast and hard. I knew what it meant. A universal, silent Morse code for "I'm here, I love you. At that moment I realised everything had changed: we had transitioned. We had chosen each other. We were family. (...) My mess only takes proper shape with that familiar and favourite piece of my life standing next to me. (...) She is, in short, my best friend.

When you’re looking for love and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and restore you. It will hold you when you cry, celebrate when you're happy and sing All Saints with you when you're drunk. You have so much to gain and learn from this kind of love. You can carry it with you for ever. Keep it as close to you as you can.

More often than not, the love someone gives you will be a reflection of the love you give yourself. If you can't treat yourself with kindness, care and patience, chances are someone else won't either.

Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt in my long-term friendships with women. Particularly the ones I have I have lived with at one point or another. I know what it is to know every tiny detail about a person and revel in that knowledge as if it were an academic subject. When it comes to the girls I've built homes with, I'm like the woman who can predict what her husband will order at every restaurant.

Rip open hearts with your fury and tear down egos with your modesty. Be the person you wish you could be, not the person you feel you are doomed to be. Let yourself run away with your feelings. You were made so that someone could love you. Let them love you.

Places are kingdoms of memories and relationships; that the landscape is only ever a reflection of how you feel inside.

I wondered if l would ever have that with someone or if I was even built to float in a sea of love.

But I feel so far behind you and I'm worried you'll run out of sight.

You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again.

These gaps in each other's lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together any more. You're living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like.

I would like to pause the story a moment to talk about ‘nothing will change’. I’ve heard it said to me repeatedly by women I love during my twenties when they move in with boyfriends, get engaged, move abroad, get married, get pregnant. ‘Nothing will change’. It drives me bananas. Everything will change. Everything will change. The love we have for each other stays the same, but the format, the tone, the regularity and the intimacy of our friendship will change for ever.

It began with a train journey. I always thought something brilliant might happen to me on a train. The transitional state of a long journey has always seemed to me the most romantic and magical of places to find yourself in; marooned in a cosy pod of your own thoughts, suspended in mid-air, travelling through a wodge of silent, blank pages between two chapters. A place where phones dip in and out of consciousness and you're forced to spend time with your thoughts, working out what needs to be reshaped and reordered.

Your imagination has the daily workout of an Olympic athlete when you attend an all-girls school.

Any woman who spent her formative years surrounded only by other girls will tell you the same thing: you never really shake off the idea that boys are the most fascinating, beguiling, repulsive, bizzare creatures to roam the earth; as dangerous and mythological as a Sasquatch.

I blame my high expectations for love on two things: the first is that I am the child of parents who are almost embarrassingly infatuated with each other; the second is the films I watched in my formative years.

You'll feel settled, centred and calm when you fall in love.

When you are thin enough, you'll be happy with who you are and then you'll be worthy of love

When you’re look for love, and it seems like you may never find it remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already.

On the flight home, I daydreamed of Tottenham Court Road and ordering shit off Amazon.

Therapy is a great archeological dig on your psyche until you hit something.