Threads

We walk through cold, Christmas-lit streets to Euston Station from near Oxford street. It’s after 10:30pm and I’m heading for the sleeper train, which will take me back home to Edinburgh. I’ve been down for two days – a mixture of work, pleasure, connecting and catching up. A bunch of us have met for what has become a sort of tradition – Christmas mini-golf, followed by burgers and we are all scattering back – to hotels and homes and the holidays ahead.

I find I’m full – of booze and burgers, sure - but I have a sense of my soul infused with gratitude and the good stuff that comes from spending time with people you have known for years and you adore. The sense of over a decade of conversations, of Twitter chats and shared gifs and memes, moving to unplanned meetups at conferences and events, to intentional meetups – coffee, dinner, co-working.  Eventually it tips to the personal – birthdays and celebrations, time spent in Airbnb’s planning businesses, yoga retreats and roadtrips and holidays. Phonecalls and messages seeking advice or offering advice: “Can you have a look at this?”  “Of course, send it through”.

Gossip and side chats, worries about kids and health, house moves, break ups, new jobs, dealing with death, pandemic online quiz nights, long walks to establish how OK the OK actually is – the hundred little threads of concern, challenge and care that weave together to make connection.

Jo says she needs this more, sometimes. Contact with folk who know you outside of work and parenting and daughtering…. Easy company to be in. I get that. So much. She and I haven’t seen each other in person for two years and we pick up like I just walked back into the kitchen and she’s offering me a cuppa. I miss her wisdom and wit.

I say: It’s always there. The Thread. You just need to pull on it.

 I’m aware that runs two ways.

I sit on the train, staring out of the window at the dark sleeping world and writing until after 2 am – my writing has strong sentimentality, almost melancholy in parts, but the themes bring home to me again and again the importance of friendship.

I’m not a joiner. I don’t easily do community or stay in one place without effort. I moved time and time again as a kid and my nomadic, self-reliant, sitting-on-the-edge habits are deeply wired. So, I need a community of people who move with me, who form and re-form as my life does. Who stay steady when I wander and waiver. Who hold a sense of who I am, even when my own sense gets a little fuzzy.

As time goes by, these threads of connection become even more vital, I find.

I close up my laptop and fall into a surprisingly OK sleep, waking up a few times, but arriving in Edinurgh only a little jet lagged. My sense of being home, of having completed that last travel of the year, is immense and comes with relief. My sense of being held well, by a web of threads across a country, is strong and I feel reconfigured and grateful.

So as we move into the time of holidays and spending time with family and seeing folk who don’t necessarily “see” you…maybe drop a note to your chosen family – the ones around you, related or otherwise, that you would forge an alliance with, come the zombie apocalypse... or just ones that make a good cup of tea.

Choose wisely. Your survival depends on it.

About me:

I'm Julie Drybrough - Founder of fuchsia blue ltd. An experienced Organisational Consultant, Executive Coach/ Supervisor, Writer & Speaker.

Pragmatic, forthright and kind, I work with people & organisations to improve conversations, relationships & learning.

If you want to talk to me about coaching, supervision, leadership development or change,  contact fuchsiablueto find out more or book a space to chat.

Join me for Write Nights or Rise & Write Solstice Meditation here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/fuchsiablue

Find me on bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/juliedrybrough.bsky.social