imagined-community

The Quigleys eat out.

I’ve spent a lot of time roaming around the country and have said a lot of goodbyes. But lately it has become especially hard for me to say goodbye. I think partly because I don’t have a network of close friends in Boston. And also I don’t work with my friends on a daily basis as I did in Wisconsin. In fact, it wasn’t until I moved to Boston that I fully realized that I am the kind of person who cannot thrive without the security that comes from close relationships. I am not sure why I was oblivious to this truth in the past, I can only assume that it was because even though boyfriends came and went, I always had a close friend or two around whose shoulder I could lean on. I knew that I felt crappy with the end of a romantic relationship, and I knew I relied on my friends to get me through the sadness and to encourage me to open up to someone new, but I didn’t realize how vital the security of those friendships was until I got to Boston. Not only had I taken friendship for granted, but I had seriously misunderstood the nature of my own so-called independence. Yes, I could live without a boyfriend, but only because I had been blessed with solid friendships.

And what better friendship is there than that between a happily married couple? (The psychologist I was talking about Mindy, the one who can tell if a couple will divorce within the first five minutes of meeting them was Gottman, who argues that “happy marriages are based on deep friendship.”)