Chosen, Not Needed

Today, as I fly out to Melbourne, I’m making space for something that feels both grounding and expansive… time with the person who knows me.

I mean really knows me.

She has seen me at my worst and at my best, and holds both without judgment. There’s no performance required, no shaping or softening of who I am. Even with distance, she has remained at the forefront of my life… steady, present, unchanged in the ways that matter.

I’ve had other friendships, the kind that feel like family but with time and awareness comes clarity.

I can now see how some of those connections were built on coping, on unspoken exchanges where listening and giving went beyond what was healthy.

Where, in subtle ways, my brokenness met their need to feel needed.

That’s not said with blame just understanding.

Because I know the difference now.

And this friendship is different.

Her way of moving through the world has always fascinated me not as limitation, but as expansion. She understands, deeply, that for her world to feel safe, she must be discerning. She doesn’t compromise herself to belong.

There’s something profoundly regulating about that… something honest.

During the time of COVID-19 pandemic, we found ourselves on parallel planes. The world was spiralling, and we both recognised how easily difference could divide. So we did something intentional we stepped back, just enough.

Not out of disconnection, but protection.

We protected what we had.

And when the world softened again… we returned, not missing a beat. If anything, it was stronger. Deeper. Rooted in a quiet understanding of what it means to choose each other, even when it would’ve been easier not to.

A couple of years ago, we lost someone very close to us. A friend who, in many ways, embodied parts of both of us, the scientist, the environmentalist, the hippy, the anxious one, the trauma survivor. There are people in life who feel like mirrors… and losing that kind of presence shifts something internally.

It made me reflect on us.

So often, I’ve felt like the world we experience is an extension of something shared, like David and Jonathan a connection that isn’t easily explained, only felt.

She has been my protector at times.

The one who would show up, who would sacrifice, who held space without resentment, without needing me to be anything other than what I was in that moment.

And I don’t think we say it enough, how much someone truly means to us.

Life is too fragile to assume it’s understood.

I remember standing together at our friend’s wake, saying out loud what we had probably always known, that losing one another would feel unbearable. In that moment, there was a quiet agreement, that distance, time, they don’t define this.

She is my rock.

Not because she had to be, but because she chose to be.

She chose to love me.
She chose to stay.
She chose to forgive.
She chose to value me.

And that kind of love lands differently.

Last year, in a therapy session, something surfaced that had been quietly shaping my life, abandonment. A thread that had woven itself through so many experiences, influencing how tightly I held on, how deeply I needed proof that I belonged, that I was enough.

Without immediate family to anchor into, my nervous system did what it knew, it clung.

But something has shifted.

Now, at 50, and two years into doing this work in a way that feels embodied, I can finally say I feel enough.

Not as a concept, but as a felt sense in my body.

My children and my husband are here, through love, through commitment, through their own journeys and survival patterns.

But she

She chose me.

I didn’t have to try harder.
I didn’t have to impress.
I didn’t have to abandon parts of myself to be accepted.

I just got to be.

And that, is safety.

This weekend, I’ve stepped away from my family to celebrate her turning 50.

She’s not a time waster, she’s deeply generous and she loves food, possibly more than I do.

I smile thinking about the way she experiences a meal, like a perfumer describing notes. The scent, the texture, the layers, the first bite… it’s never just food, it’s an experience.

And as I write this, I can feel it all.

Some blogs aren’t here to teach, they’re not here to unpack or guide. Some are simply an ode.

An offering of gratitude.

To the person who requires no words, no affirmations, no explanations, just a quiet knowing that you are enough.

As I close my eyes, I feel it in my body that inner smile. A softness. A warmth.

Memories flicker, moments blend into one another, and I realise,

This is my anchor.

We spend so much of our lives searching for love in the places we expect it to be. Trying to make sense of why it doesn’t always land the way we need.

But sometimes, God meets us right where we are.

Not in the obvious places, but in the ones we didn’t know to look.

And in the midst of survival in the fight, the flight, the uncertainty we convince ourselves we’ve never felt true safety.

Yet when I look inward…

She was there.

In the moments life felt too heavy. I’ve had friends who could listen, but listening isn’t always safety. Sometimes it’s entangled with need, with quiet resentment, with dynamics that keep us small.

And I can see now how that didn’t help me grow.

It enabled.

True safety doesn’t come from being held in our brokenness, It comes from being able to sit in our vulnerability to feel discomfort without escaping it and allowing that to transform into something deeper.

Strength.
Grace.
Compassion.
Love.

So this is for you

Thank you.

Not just for being someone I get to celebrate this weekend, but for being someone who helped me hold on to my own life, when I didn’t know how.