Eleanor is a truly Good friend. Capitalised Good. Good with depth and weight. She listens to your moanings and troubles and provides valuable input that makes you see it in a new light. This year saw me spend a week on holiday with Eleanor in beautiful Sicily, and then we started living together when she moved up to London and took over my previous housemate’s room. Unsurprisingly, I observed and learnt a lot more about Eleanor in these periods than I had over our tea and cake breaks at university, phone calls whilst travelling, and fleeting visits in between. Read on for some of these observations, in the form of an acrostic (naturally).
E - Energy. Bear with me here, but I’m all about people’s energies these days. (To make it worse, it stems from a conversation with a woman who had spent 8 years in an Ashram whilst we took a long walk together in rural Vietnam.) When Eleanor first moved to London, I could feel her apprehension and stress. It shocked me how strongly I felt it diffuse over me when we were in the same space. And this let me experience something really beautiful. I felt the apprehension and stress slowly disappear as she settled into London. As she found her rhythm and space within the movement of the city. I felt her excitement for London as she returned from seeing friends, or attending a cool event. I felt her content-ness after a long week, as she meal prepped a chilli on a Sunday afternoon with vegetables handpicked from the green grocers. It renewed my love of London, and my pride in her for taking on this challenge.
L - Laughter. I always knew Eleanor was funny, it’s one of the reasons we’re friends. But since living together I have noticed a markable uptick in tears caused from laughing so hard. My favourite evenings have been spent cuddled up on the sofa, laughing at how different we are in some ways, at our odd tendencies, and at our silly little lives. These conversations also leave space to talk about more vulnerable topics, which I appreciate hugely.
E - Elephant-like memory. Eleanor remembers everything, every minute detail I fling into the void and immediately forget about. She’s like a velcro board for information.
A - Arranger. You know all of those ideas you talk about with friends that then never happen? Not with Eleanor around! She is chief arranger and will make sure all of those wonderful plans come to fruition.
N - Night owl. I learnt that Eleanor is absolutely a night owl. No matter what time I arrive home from work, or sneak in after being out, she is always the last one standing. But it’s not like she lies in - I don’t know how she runs on so little sleep!
O - Organisation. Eleanor is one of those people whose brain operates on a different level (to mine anyway). She considers everything, plans everything, and is meticulous in her preparation. If she wanted to be a project manager, which it seems she has been in part recently, it would be the most smoothly run project ever seen. Sometimes I try and imagine what it must look like in Eleanor’s mind, hundreds of parallel train tracks with multiple trains of thought steaming ahead at the same time. The phrase “spinning a lot of plates” never seemed to hit so right. If her thoughts were superimposed into my head, I’m sure I would instantly overheat and collapse.
R - Running is not something Eleanor entertains, in any way. She eyes Alex (our housemate) suspiciously as he goes on yet another long run as he trains for a marathon. Her distaste for running deepens when he returns and insists on showing us his bloody foot and then lies groaning on the sofa for the rest of the evening. She does, however, LOVE walking. No day is complete without a walk. Even if it’s very late and she’s been slammed at work, she will fearlessly trot around Highbury fields, up to her eyeballs in scarves and warm layers.
I’d also like to thank Eleanor in writing for letting me ramble on about my objectively boring job, and for managing to feign some interest in the goings on of a law firm!