Friday Mood: Boardsports Besties
Why the mates you make leaping onto boards and falling on your ass are so bloody brilliant (and why midlife friendships are the ones you never knew you needed)
I was stopped in my tracks by a message I received in the Board Women whatsapp this week,
“Dear 15 year old me..who can’t afford the hobbies you want, or know girls to go do them with, struggling to come out, living for the one week a year when I got out of London and got to go to Croyde in Devon and get in the sea..one day your life will contain sentences like this from other people. Amazing”
It was in response to me sharing that Queer Surf Club were hosting a day out at The Wave, and had invited women from our community to join.
The rest of the whatsapp group were quick to cheer this woman on, and it brought an unbelievable smile to my face.
Because, controversial as it may be, I’m starting to think that some of the best mates you’ll make in life come from surprise ones you create through following your passions later in life.
Hear me out on this one (and no offence at all to the fantastic friends I have, some of whom I’ve known since I was 4. That’s a pretty long stint to put up with me).
The first friends you make are when you literally don’t know anything. You bumble into each other at the age of four and it must purely be pheromones. That or they had some lego you wanted.
I have a few childhood friends still in my life, and they are truly excellent. I can pick up the phone to them if something is wrong, and they would 100% do their best to help. And we can be apart for years and come back together and life is exactly the same.
However. In reality we’ve lived about 20 lives since we first knew each other, and whilst our stupid, juvenile sense of humour might still be in tact, nearly everything else about us has changed. For most of us, we haven’t lived in proximity to each other for a lifetime, but there is a perennial tie that keeps us coming back for more.
But for me, most of these friends don’t really share any of my hobbies (and maybe they never did, or I just hadn’t really discovered what my hobbies were yet). And that means there is a connection focused on passion and joy that just isn’t there. I love catching up with these people, they will always (I hope) be in my life, but I think we’d all say that our lives have gone down different tracks. And that’s ok. But it brings me on to the next stages of friendship creation.
University and work mates. Forged within structures that mean you see each other repeatedly. Baptism of fire friendships, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the vodka redbulls. Or snake bite and blacks. Yes, I was classy (don’t get me started on MD 20/20).
I look back on this period, and whilst it was bloody fun, in reality I’m not even sure I’d grown into who I was supposed to be yet. Life was for living, working hard, playing hard, and whilst I always knew I loved the outdoors, and I spent a fair bit of time chasing down my hobbies, I just didn’t know anyone else who did them. Surfing was always me going off solo on a retreat somewhere. Or the occasional trip out to Kent from London, only to find flat waves.
Snowboarding was visiting my brother (who lived in switzerland at the time, and had mates who would teach me via chucking me down red runs, one coccyx injury at a time); or later with boyfriends who snowboarded (and were always better than I was, which made for some frustrating mountain trips). I didn’t skate at the time, but if I couldn’t get my mates to surf or snowboard, imagine me trying to get them to throw themselves down ramps.
My new mates were lovely, and I still know many of them, but they were friendships forged in circumstantial ways. We hadn’t sought each other out, we’d accidentally found each other (and yes, I’m the better for it).
And now I’m in the era of friendships based on things I love. Friends also seeking freedom. Friends who are prioritising joy. And it is bloody lovely.
This era of friendship feels entirely different. I’m just coming out of the end of the friends you make via your kids at school, kids at playgroup (an era I found hard, but I did manage to find a few keepers amongst the women who just wanted to talk about their kids. All the time.) These friendships are choiceful. If I make room for them in my busy life, it really matters.
Now I’m ready for a different kind of friend. A friend who prioritises their own joy and knows it makes them a better mum, friend, colleague. A friend who is just up for the simple act of getting outside. A friend who wants adventure. A friend who doesn’t care about looking silly. A friend who might be drowning from perimenopause & family responsibility, but has decided to fight through. A friend who has chosen to throw their pride out the window and jump on a board and fall on their ass. A friend who is likely to then see that bruise as a badge of honour and show everyone their ass with renewed sense of pride about their body. A friend who has decided what their body looks like is suddenly far less important than what it can do. A friend who joins a whatsapp group and chooses to meet up with a bunch of strangers just to roll around on concrete and chat shit.
These friends I am so here for. They are a wonderful addition to the friends I already have (who I do appreciate!), and I didn’t even know I needed them.
And when I get messages from other women who are clearly feeling the same way I am, for whom Board Women has given them access to that kind of friendship, well. This all feels kind of worth it.
Thanks for reading, have a fab weekend all
Caroline
Board Women Founder