Why My Best Friends Have Been My Lifeline
In August 2010, I turned 40 years old. As I had never gotten married or had kids, this life event felt particularly special, so I chose the occasion [pictured above] to honour a special group of my female friends. It was a group who had been by my side over the years: for better, for worse, rich or poor, sickness and health – and through a handful of diabolical dating decisions, most of them mine. At my black-tie event in Adelaide, I called them one by one to the stage and presented them with the most painfully-fluorescent pink sashes I could find, which I’d had embroidered with big black letters that read Amber’s Lifemaid.
Before a packed room of family and friends, I ceremoniously placed the sash over each friend’s shoulder in turn, while sharing why our journey together as friends had been so fundamental to me.
If there has been one constant in my life, it has been the way that these friends (and others) have shown up for me time and again, especially during times of great change, shifts or sadness.
“When love goes out, love comes in”: a wise Sydney healer once explained this theory to me and I’ve since seen how such an invisible tidal flow works.
This was certainly true of my most treasured friendships, with a girl from Tassie who I met in my early 20s while working for a Melbourne marketing agency. The pretty new girl at the agency, Mary was distinctly different to the friends I’d made at school, or the party friends I’d acquired in my late teens. Along with Simone, another lifelong friend I met at the agency, Mary showed me the importance of finding friends whose values align with yours. In the past, I had often been seen as the entertainer, expected to perform in social arenas. It was through these two significant friendships that I realised that rather than performing or needing the stimulation of nightclubs, bars and parties, I really longed for human connection. Those two friendships gave that to me: long, deep conversations about our 20something lives, love and the spiritual meaning of all it all.
Just before my 27th birthday, I ended a significant relationship, moved to Sydney and took up a new job at Mushroom Records. On paper, my groovy new job looked like something my 15-year-old self would have thought was the ultimate “fuck you” to every teacher who’d written me off as a ratbag. But for the girl living away from family and concealing a broken heart, a job rich in late-night gigs, alcohol, drugs and rock stars left me on fairly shaky ground.
Thank god the tides of love were once again flowing, as I was greeted by my new Mushroom colleagues –Rachel, Andy, Brooke, Kate and Jolie – all of whom I can proudly say, more than 20 years later, remain among my closest confidantes. After all this time, and having shared the experience of working in the crazy music industry, we know each other inside and out. And it was them, and others who I consider my best friends, who were there when I needed them most – when my dad took his last breaths as I lay in a bed beside him.
In those days after my father’s death, as I tried to function and “do life”, my only comfort was the 100 per cent organic love from long friendships … the sort that pours in in the immediate aftermath and, more importantly, keeps coming after everyone else moves on. It was my lifeline. Without that love, it would at times have been hard to simply breathe.
Over the years, had I not consciously, and unconsciously, been chipping away at trying to identify what a great friend looks like to me – the textures and tones that each brings, and that I give to them – I would’ve felt scarily lost at sea.
““My truly great friends know … that sometimes I can be a little controlling, sometimes I over-do love – and every now and then I might need a little circuit breaker, which is when they step in.” ”
I knew which friends would rally around me because they are the ones who have done so in the past. Not always with big gestures, but with little things that make my heart sing. Like the way my best friend Rachel always makes my bed when I come to stay, meticulously fussing over the sheets and pillows, making sure I feel like a happy child as I jump under the covers and she kisses me goodnight.
Or when Andy and Penny send me a bouquet of flowers simply because they know I’m having a flat day, living alone, tired of lockdown and feeling hopeless, not knowing when we can be together again. Or when Kylie surprised me on our trip to Egypt with a hand-painted picture on papyrus of Isis, my favourite goddess, a work of art I’d told myself I couldn’t afford, despite falling hard for it. Kylie believes I deserve nice things and I saw the joy in her face at knowing it was now mine.
My truly great friends know my wounds but don’t use them against me. They know there have been times in my life that I’ve needed to drink a lot of red wine, belt out Billy Joel’s entire greatest hits catalogue – before moving on to Elton’s – to forget about my toxic love life for a while. Because they know that sometimes I can be a little controlling, sometimes I over-do love – and every now and then I might need a little circuit breaker, which is when they step in.
About 10 years ago, I was seated next to a lovely man at a dinner party in Copenhagen to celebrate the twin births of one of my best friends. During the evening the man turned to me, looked at me smiling and asked, “Amber, what would you consider your greatest masterpiece?” At the time, I didn’t have a good answer. In the intervening years, however, the answer to this dinner party curveball has become clear. I may have struggled in some areas of my life, but when it comes to friends, I have done well. It is my friendships that are my greatest masterpiece – one I’m committed to adding brushstrokes to until my last days.
Amber Petty’s memoir This Is Not A Love Song is out now.