Kadi Lee, right, with Cleo Wade, left, and the Duchess of Sussex. Photo / Instagram
Kadi Lee, right, with Cleo Wade, left, and the Duchess of Sussex. Photo / Instagram
OPINION
You may have seen pictures of Meghan lunching on her 42nd birthday with a couple of girlfriends, one of whom is her colourist, and you may have thought, “Oh So California! Bet the other one’s her reiki healer,” but to be fair, this is what modern life looks like for a lot of women now.
If you’re not celebrating your birthday with your colourist (mine’s way too busy) you will have a gang of not so much friends as people you can’t get through the month without.
Your very own Emotional Support Bubble.
You don’t need to be rich or famous or American or staggeringly self-absorbed to have an Emotional Support Bubble (ESB), a collection of people who don’t know each other or, most likely, anyone in your life, who have over time, in an unplanned and, dare I say it, “organic” way, become your support network.
This ESB might include your hairdresser, your yoga teacher or personal trainer, the handyman, your cleaner, your leg waxer, maybe the owner of the deli on the corner. What all these people have in common is you pay them for various services and as such they are obliged to be attentive, patient and always interested in a way that friends aren’t – hence the sniggering about Meghan’s birthday line-up. But the reality is far more complex and surprising.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Commonwealth Day Service 2020 at Westminster Abbey on March 09, 2020 in London, England. Photo / Getty Images
These are people whose job it is to listen, interpret, who know a surprising amount about our lives without risk of them ever sharing it with anyone, and in whom we trust, whether it’s to cut off just enough hair, stretch our Achilles without snapping it, or redecorate the kitchen while we’re on holiday and buy the materials using our cash card (this is a step too far for some but not me. Part of the therapeutic nature of an ESB is trusting and being trusted unconditionally. Both feel very good in a world where trust is in shorter supply than dark skies).
Once you let people into your house or let them lay hands on you, or both in the case of Sam, my long-suffering personal trainer, it’s impossible not to talk about things that matter at some point – to one of you. Should you have intervened earlier with your dying mother’s care? Are you drinking too much? Can you make someone, like your husband, have therapy?
These are all matters you would happily discuss with your friends, but your friends are in a meeting or at a funeral or dealing with a UCAS crisis – and anyway, it’s so much easier to have those conversations when you are in a chair in front of a mirror, prone on a mat, pointing at the damp patch on the ceiling on the verge of tears, or mulling over the cheese selection, one-on-one with someone who cares just enough, and whose job it is to make you feel a bit better if they can.
Besides, when you see your friends it’s been six weeks and you’re meant to be having fun, not delving into the murky business of whether your parents’ carers were negligent.
There’s an unspoken understanding that it’s better not to go there, or you’ll unlock Sarah’s ongoing bitter divorce story and Jack’s blocked arteries shock, and once you’ve all done offloading it’ll be time to limp home and no one will have got around to dissecting Oppenheimer, talking about who was drunkest at the wedding, or whatever it is that cheers you up.
You never need to worry about boring your hairdresser: soul-baring comes with the territory. You’re not concerned about over sharing with the handyman, because that’s what you do over tea and biscuits.
Meghan may be short on old friends, but a trusted colourist who’ll soak up the Netflix fallout stress and debate the pros and cons of nursery care may be exactly what she needs. Don’t knock it.
