Notes on Friendships with Women from my Wild, Recent Past
The leaked list of Jonah Hill’s boundaries demands has been on my mind for weeks. ICYMI, he compiled a series of activities his then-girlfriend had to stop in order for them to stay together:
Not only is the list ridiculous, but it also includes some of my favourite pastimes. Specifically, having friendships with women who are in unstable places and from my wild, recent past — beyond getting lunch or coffee.
There was a time when all of my friends were unstable. We blared Kesha and drank porn star shots in sludgy bars that young girls and old men frequented. Someone usually puked. Someone usually cried.
It was always messy.
Today my “wild” friends are mostly contained. They’re happily living within the cages of 9-5 work, domestic romance, and morning routines. More poignantly, many are reflecting on their time in the wilderness.
And so, coincidentally, is Kesha. Her new album, Gag Order is deeply reflective, vulnerable, and a powerful depiction of healing from trauma. This from the same artist who brought us, TiK ToK and Blah Blah Blah.
Her growth from party-girl pop to preachy ballads to nuanced art is an acknowledgement of what I’ve seen time and time again with my friends. The most unstable girls can tumble into the most impeccable women.
The roommate who popped Xanax at the bar and joke-flirted with our drug dealer now posts her summer reading list and apartment decor.
The friend who was always sending nudes is now a regular church-goer.
The lab partner who drank me under the table and walked me into a construction site now runs her own company side of desk.
The older classmates who procured my freshman fake ID are now married homeowners and senior corporate leaders.
Whenever they share pictures of their homes, careers, and casual glasses of pinot grigio, I feel a sense of pride and loss. We used to hold each other’s hair in parking lots after chugging boxed wine. We used to share couches and beds for late nights and hungover mornings. We used to know each other in ways that new friends will never fully understand.
It was raw, short-lived, hopeful and hopeless all at the same time. I loved them in their messiest forms and now I admire their new squeaky clean glean. In it, I see my reflection.
The woman writing this article at 8am on a Sunday would be unrecognizable to those girls, too.
Years of therapy have shown me that I was distracting myself with vices. Instead of time alone with my thoughts, I drank excessively and sought intimacy with strangers. I cosplayed as a confident, Samantha-type to mask deep insecurities and fear.
Most of it was unhealthy. Almost all of it was fun. And I’m still figuring out how to feel about those truths combined.
To Jonah Hill’s chagrin, these relationships keep me grounded. They show me how far I’ve come, what I’ve made for myself, and how lucky I am to have these women in my life. No matter how often I faceplanted on sidewalks (too often) or got into fights at the bar (also too often), they saw me through to the next chapter.
In every new era, friends get lost along the way, too. Sometimes we grow apart, other times it’s self-preservation. I’ve distanced myself from people who remind me of old versions of me. It’s hard to reconcile the darkest moments of my behaviour with the values I thought I always had.
For the ones that stayed, we navigate the transition from wild to peaceful together. We commiserate. We share highlights from our therapy sessions and lowlights from our weeks. We understand the urge to be feral as a distraction from what we actually need. We know, and we still laugh at how we used to be.
One of my best friends just set her wedding date. She was the roommate I had to help out of the bath after a twerking-related injury. She gleefully let me hang a stripper pole in our living room. She drunkenly took me to my first spray tan when I got stood up on a date.
We haven’t seen each other in years, but we’ve watched each other grow up. I know our bond is just as strong as it was when we lived together - even if it was less than a year.
I’m no longer the person who leaves every cupboard door open. I am not the girl with a mattress on the floor and rotting leftovers in the fridge. But she will always be my perfectly bonkers roommate.
As much as we’ve all changed, there are glimmers of the girlhood chaos that forged these relationships. Occasionally, a birthday, wedding, or bachelorette will bring us all back to the stumbling idiots we used to be.
After a friend’s dress fitting, I watched five grown women pee in a city alley. A 30th birthday party dissolved into a night of clubbing. The pure release and regression of those moments are reminders of how far we’ve come. I feel safe unwinding with the women who’ve already seen me at my worst.
Without them as mirrors of my experience, my growth feels hollow. I’ve met women who either don’t have or don’t look back on wreckless memories with fondness. Instead, they look at mine with sympathy.
You were clearly coping, They say.
Which I was, but that’s not the point. The point is that I coped with a cohort of other copers. We helped each other through it and came out the other side together. My wild past was brief and brash, and it taught me how to be a sister.
Jonah Hill can never grasp the magnitude of that kind of friendship.
Kesha, however, fully understands. I’ll end with a quote from her album. Here’s to the unstable women of my wild, not-so-recent past:
I can have all of the cocaine and the pills at every party
But who's the one that's gonna care if I can make it home?
I can be the soundtrack and the punchline to the story
But you know parts of me nobody else will ever know
Oh, how do I even imagine describin' life without the sun?
How do some things seem to end just after they've begun?