There was so much that could have gone wrong. We could have been mugged, double-booked, bitten by rabid dogs. We could have lost luggage, missed connecting flights, been washed away in a storm. Before a large group of us departed for the other side of the world a few months ago to celebrate my husband's birthday, many asked if I was anxious. Yes, I said, very. But it was not the prospect of the journey we were about to embark on that was keeping me awake at night. No, what menaced me in the small hours was the question of how everyone would get on. Would it work? Would they like each other? To be caught between those I love, amid feuding friends, is my greatest anxiety-trigger. Even at the thought of being torn, expected to take sides, the panic that lodges in my belly, awaiting the slightest encouragement, starts to rise. However, when I voiced this to my husband, to another mother at school, to the beauty therapist, they pooh-poohed my fear. It's not your responsibility, they said. I knew differently though. We had invited them all; we were bringing these people from different parts of our life together, we were responsible for their enjoyment.
And then there was no point in worrying any longer because we were on the plane, we were going through immigration, we were settling into our villa, it was happening. And as the ringmaster of proceedings, the organiser of the accommodation, the planner of the itinerary, there was so much to do, so many calls to place, inquiries to make, issues to solve. Aren't you stressed, they asked. Not by this, I wanted to say. This is easy. My only worry is all of you. Tell me; oh please reassure me, that you're playing nice. But what I hadn't noticed while I was busy cancelling taxis and rescheduling restaurants, what I had been blind to while I was dealing with the concierge and negotiating with the caterer, was the links that were being forged, the in-jokes that were taking shape. Our friends' laughter ringing sweetly in my ears, I saw that I had only entertained what could go wrong, not right. In all my fretting I had overlooked the possibility they might hit it off. Had never once considered the particular joy I might derive from watching those I love fall in love.
I have a friend who rashly invites random groups of her favourite women to lunch on her birthday every year, and every year I am filled with awe. For while I will happily organise an event that is naturally ring-fenced because the invitees all belong to this or that group, I would never just pick and choose from the different circles I move in. I would find it impossible to draw the line, that if I asked this person, then I must ask that. I could not bear to be the cause of anyone's hurt at being left off or out. I would torment myself over what to do about the friends who have fallen out. Do you ask one and risk upsetting the other? Is it braver, more honourable, to ask both or is this the coward's way out?
Away last weekend with my book club, fortified by the success of my husband's birthday trip, I was able to appreciate group dynamics in a way my anxiety does not usually allow. And I was struck by the undulating beauty, the fluidity of the collective. That inevitably there are divisions, but in and of themselves they are not inexorably divisive. And that while individually we might not always seek each other out, together we are more than the sum of our parts.
Following on
