Fictional Friendship

I moved back to the states in March 2020, a week before Boston shut everything down. I was glad to be home, to be starting fresh and to be quarantining in a house with other people as opposed to my studio apartment alone. That is until around June, when my home was still also my parents’ home, my start was no longer fresh and my place of quarantine had become less of a house and more of just a bed, specifically, my childhood bed.
So, that’s what I’m choosing to blame this whole thing on: the months passing by without any noticeable change, the hours spent wrapped within the warmth of the flannel sheets on my childhood bed, the delicate layer of sour cream and onion chip crumbs that I slept on every night;, that’s what made me so lonely. As June turned to November and the number of customers allowed in restaurants went up, so did my hopes that things would change. New job, new apartment, new favorite snack (hello cheez its), I was certain it was only a matter of time before a new sense of adventure and self-worth found their way into my life as well.
Haha.
Alas, November faded into December and the only things that had changed were (once again) the snack of choice (chocolate hummus) and the fact that now I had to pay to wash my fleece sheets (an in-unit washer/dryer is a certain sign you’ve made it in this world). When it became clear that the outside world also wouldn’t be changing much, I decided something needed to happen to force adventure and some semblance of socialness back into my life.
So I started online dating.
And when even that didn’t help, I started reading.
While online dating gave me socialness for sure and a certain sort of adventure, the thing keeping me up at night was the books.
Lisa Jewell wrote books with plots that made me question my own sanity; Julia Heaberlin gave me characters that left me wondering about them long after I had finished reading; while C.S. Lewis brought comfort where I had questions and more questions where I had once had comfort. But, no matter what I was reading (even the ones I didn’t enjoy quite as much), I was always provided with a friend, an adventure and a hole in my heart when it ended. I picked sixty books in an attempt to fill empty time and ended up finding the friends and adventures that I had really been missing.
I didn’t realize just how much of a difference these books had made until I met Poppy from The People We Meet on Vacation who’s story could have been taken right out of my hopes- and-dreams journal.
The People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is an easy-read romance about a girl who has given up everything in pursuit of her dream career and, when she is finally exactly where she wants to be, realizes something is missing. This sends her on a journey to rekindle things with a recently-distanced friend who she just can’t stop thinking about.
So, basically, it was the life that I had written for myself in my head, written much more eloquently on paper, but it wasn’t me who had lived it. At first, I loved it. Seeing my dreams played out (minus the rekindled college romance, unfortunately). Reading about her travels left me feeling similar to the way I feel when talking about trips I’ve been on. Hearing her thoughts on the man she loved from afar and how silly she felt for thinking them brought back memories of crushes and fears of unrequited love. Her constant wonder about how things would be if she had made a different choice or had chosen a different path paralleled the questions that fill my mind when I have a little too much time to think. Poppy made me feel so understood – so normal.
And then I felt SO jealous.
Jealous that I hadn’t had the courage to live those dreams the way that she had. Jealous that, in a world of online dating, she had turned a beautiful young friendship into an adult romance. Jealous of the adventure that she was on, reconciling her travels, blogging and whirlwind romance with the reality of bills, jobs and logistics. Jealous that the questions she asked herself about how things would be different if she had made choices were actually the exact opposite of the questions that I was asking myself – Poppy wondering what less risks taken would look like, me wondering what life would be like if I had taken more.
And then I realized the jealousy I was feeling over this fictional woman’s life was clouding the camaraderie that I had loved so much when I first started reading.
When I stopped thinking about the things I had missed out on and started enjoying Poppy’s story for what it was, I realized just how much the main theme of the story–the importance of taking risks to figure out where and how you belong–remains as true a part of the life I’m actually living as the one that I’ve dreamed of.
So, while I didn’t drop out of college and into a travel-blogging career as Poppy did, it doesn’t mean it’s too late. Though I don’t have an estranged friend I’m currently pining for, online dating that turns into friendships and eventually romances can be just as whirlwind-y. Bills, jobs and logistics will always need to be reconciled with dreams and adventures. And no matter what choices I make, the what-if’s will always be in the back of my mind, waiting for the quietest moments to make their appearance.
Poppy might not be a real-life friend but her dreams, fears and her constant feeling like maybe she made the wrong choice made me feel like I had a very real friend. And in a year when making new friends was exceptionally challenging, a fictional friendship was exactly what I needed.

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