Thoughts from a summer of love

The last few years of my closest friends, and sisters getting married has shown me first-hand, how fragile our relationships are, and how fragile they become, particularly as new ones form. From rupturing friendships, to feeling the loss of my sisters, observing how people thrive – or crumble in moments of intense attention and of course, to loving my friends and sisters, even more as I see them embody love in the most beautiful way. These moments of transition have defined new eras of friendship and sisterhood all together. 

I have always felt defined by my relationships to others, perhaps more than I’d ever like to admit – even as I remain single and nothing changes, the way I show up for people changes. I find myself between roles, giving new meaning to what being a good daughter means, the phases of sisterhood, how the life-long training to be a mother and a wife manifest in my life, the kind of friend I am and want to be, and most recently, the kind of Khala I am.

A recent theme that has accompanied these thoughts, at my young age of twenty-six has been this notion of time and relationships. I have realised that so much of my late teens and early twenties were all about rushing to grow up. Age, the numbers increasing would validate how I felt internally, and they would make my old soul feel more at home. Age would justify the gravity of decisions I made and how long term I thought. And now, as I see everyone around me embody the many different versions of adulthood and play the roles we have all talked about, and trained for, I find myself leaning more into the freedom that my current life, one I associate with being young, affords me. It’s actually the life I feel least equipped for – my current life feels dreamy and confusing all at once. The one where I make all the decisions and it is all completely up to me. It’s a life of constant contradiction – I feel too old to still be living with my parents, but too young to feel worried about the next stage, and falling in love. Too old to still cry on a plane, too young to be at a friend’s baby shower. Too old to cry over breakfast at the thought of my friend moving across the world. And far, too young, to feel so behind. I find myself slipping in and out of all these different markers of age and existing in them all.

These inconsistencies in my thoughts and day to day remind me, that being single is untimely only for others around me. It disappoints people and confuses others. And yet, there is nothing more untimely than wanting to skip ahead. To grow up too fast as I have done all these years prior, to leave places before you have truly outgrown them, to rush. 

In this exact moment, between many beautiful and bedazzled bridesmaids’ dresses, picking off thorns from flowers I have chosen to make bouquets, and late evenings steaming dresses and packing little bridal pouches, I am realising that I have never felt so loved in my life. And could the pursuit – or even arrival of love then, be untimely, when I am surrounded by it?

There are nuances to this of course – I find myself between moments of love rather than leaning into a singular love – dipping in and out of the most loving families, seeing the most loving parts of my own family as we gathered to give away another sister. 

I think love has this cumulative effect – you learn about love, and each moment of love, each person you love and show love to, teaches you how to love and continue loving.

So, this summer, as I have been present in moments of love, and sometimes these moments have been stolen from me with the fear of time, I have realised this is all what a life of abundant love looks like. Love flowing in the form of worry about what my future will look like, love in the form of bridesmaid’s proposals arranged late at night and smuggled through Ryan air, my mums handmade sweets and produce from her garden welcoming in a new family member, to accompanying the people I love most in moments they have thought about their entire life. How intentional, how effortful all these moments of love and celebration are. And what a privilege – to see love through the eyes of so many and hear anecdotes from so many different families and couples.