Conversations on Love: Lovers, Strangers, Parents, Friends, Endings, Beginnings

by Natasha Lunn

Giving up that control is about having faith that things happened as they’re meant to, and if a plan doesn’t go accordingly that’s because there’s something else waiting for you – you just don’t know what it is yet.

I think there’s a danger of pulling away from love in order to own your feminism, when, actually, you learn to understand yourself in relation to people around you. You can find independence through connection too.

Long before I’d heard Alain de Botton question why we should feel more alone on weekends than any other day, Sundays tended to pass more slowly than the rest. To avoid a limp start to the morning, it was important to have a reason to get up early, to shower, to put on some proper clothes and leave the flat,

Maybe not having something you want wakes you up to another kind of romance. And when life forces you to live in the intensity of the unknown, between two possible futures, it’s also a chance to develop the inner resources and love that will serve you well in the years ahead.

‘Even if I don’t get what I want, I have a good life,’ then paying closer attention to the small details that make that life beautiful. And by never forgetting that not knowing what will happen next also means that anything could.

‘We learn about ourselves from a loved one not so much because of what he tells us, but rather by observing our own reflections in him.’

The paragraph that gives you a tingle of recognition. The lines that feel as if they are directly written for a deep, secret part of you, that you weren’t necessarily even aware of until it was woken up by words.

If I get lonely, I reach for those pieces of writing that feed the soul. That can lead you back to the best in yourself, or articulate the things that you can’t find words for.

Even when we recognize a mistake, we make the same one a few more times before fully ditching the pattern.

It wasn’t until my late twenties I understood that sometimes old friendships evolve like plants whose roots outgrow their pots: they are still alive, still growing, but they need more space to survive. More room to allow new people and experiences in too.

Today, as much as I treasure newer friendships which are – in this season of my life – present and active, I also see the distance in older ones as a reminder of their strength. Because when you feel the force of closeness between you, despite the distance? When you – or they – make a little gesture that reminds you that you still understand each other from afar? It is like a beam of light from you to them.

An old friendship is one of those things that helps you remember who you are in the world, and that’s so valuable.

When they make Moroccan rugs they sew in equal amounts of black and red: their happiness and their misfortune. Life is the balance of that, and one would hope that we can enjoy the red a bit more because the black is there.

People die. Hearts break. We love and we lose. And then we have to summon the courage to reckon with our losses and get back up, knowing there is no assurance we won’t get knocked down again.