A Love Letter To My Friends, By Imogen

Me and my friends used to have sleepovers and stay up until 10pm. I remember one of their cool older brothers sneaking up to our room with a bowl of ice cream for us. Later that night we gave in and fell asleep on the floor, our mission to make it to 11pm had failed again, but none of us cared.

Now we stay up all night in pubs and parks and watch the sunrise over the field where I learnt to ride a bike. We nap at my house, sharing beds and sofas. Tired, we wake up early to help tidy my house and then we go to our jobs to earn money to do the same thing next week. Sometimes I still flinch when it reaches 9pm and we are laughing at my house because my parents never used to let us stay up that late.

We watch films about love, read romance novels together. I love my friends but not like that. It’s a different kind of love, it’s platonic, and it is always undervalued.

I remember our sleepovers, talking about crushes and the boys in our year at school. That was what we thought girls did. Five years later we came out to each other, from that point I have always felt less alone. Now we talk about everything: girls we like, awkward dates, and how we used to believe that each other were straight. We go to Pride together and see children watching from the pavement. That used to be us, before we got older and shared the experience of realising and accepting our sexuality.

In 2020 we turned 18 and drinking wine from plastic cups in the rain. Wearing each other's coats, dancing in the park. I never used to dance in public. Then COVID spread and we switched to lockdowns and FaceTime birthdays. I didn’t speak to my friends much during the first lockdown, and it was then I realised how much I missed them. I treasured every voice message and FaceTime. I missed the hugs but I was so grateful when we got to sit in the park, two meters away from each other in a circle. I realised how lucky I was to have my friends after we had to spend months apart.

Then it was 2021 and we were back together. My friends and I resumed our lives but with a new sense of gratitude. We were back to cheap snacks and nights in pubs. Sharing art, music, poems and clothes.

We have grown up and learnt everything together. I am a mosaic of my favourite parts of my friends. Their impact is everywhere. How I talk, think and act has been shaped by them, and I love it. We can never be separate as they are always a part of me, and I am a part of them.

Now it’s September and next week and most of my friends are going to university. We are watching each other grow up and pursue our own interests. They are becoming writers, musicians, teachers, artists, athletes and activists. I remember starting secondary school with them, GCSE results, Sixth Form and A-Level results. Now we are moving away. Spreading to cities all over the country, learning to drive so we can visit each other.

I am meeting new friends now, and the traits of mine they like were given to me by my closest friends. I hope there won’t be another lockdown, because I learnt my lesson the first time. I am now always grateful to have my friends, and to be able to see them. I love them, not romantically, but that doesn't mean our relationship is any less important.