Making special time for friends brings the healing we all need

Celebrate the love in your life by cherishing your besties this Valentine’s Day. It’s a time to smell the roses — just not the commercialised ones, writes Lisa Mayoh.

My husband and I have been together for 25 years this year.

That’s 25 years of milestones, 16 wedding anniversaries and three beautiful kids – and it’s also a quarter of a century of not celebrating Valentine’s Day because, well why should we declare our love on February 14 every year, just because society tells us we should?

So we don’t, and we’re both very happy saving hundreds of dollars on red roses that will die faster than you can say Valentine’s girly friend, Galentine’s Day.

And while we don’t buy into the commercialism of either, I do like the February reminders to invest in the people we love, because nurturing adult relationships – especially with people you don’t live with – is hard.

Long days can feel too busy to call girlfriends for a catch up, to celebrate, commiserate … even though we should make the time for the friends who back us, no matter what.

Monthly get-togethers with special friends are great fun and good for the soul.

I lost my best friend in the whole wide world to triple negative breast cancer almost seven years ago when we were 36, so the importance of good girlfriends is not lost on me, and I do my best to prioritise them.

Even though Vanessa and I were in very different places in our lives before she got sick – I was busy raising three kids and she wasn’t – we would still take time from normal scheduling to reconnect.

Dumplings, pho and a wine after work once a month to whinge about every day since we’d last caught up … well they got us both through the month.

So, even though she’s gone, I’ve taken our dates and spread them to other females in my life. Old friends, new friends, good friends – we have recurring dates in the diary, and they’re cherished. Monthly dinners.

My lifelong school friends are the first Thursday of the month, gorgeous mums from my kids school on the third. They are recurring email diary invites that read: “Attendance compulsory – no excuses” – and they are the highlights of my month.

We talk. We laugh. We cry. We laugh so much we cry.

It’s important to prioritise girlfriends and see them regularly.

Nothing is off limits and everything is real.

No social media shine allowed.

Sometimes we’re so tired we go in tracksuit pants.

Other times we dress up and spoil ourselves, because … life’s too short not to.

We’ve closed pubs, we’ve closed restaurants, we’ve moved to the beach and sipped wine while the rain pours around us until the wee hours of the morning, other times we’re curled up in bed by 10.

It’s pretty special, now that I think about it.

Healing, even.

I guess that’s the beauty of taking the time to stop and smell the roses as we know we should. But maybe do that next week, when they won’t cost you $200.

Originally published as Making special time for friends brings the healing we all need