An ode to a good friend and the “lives we could live”.
Amanda Cuffe
Thursday, January 16, 2025
When I was 22, I met a girl at work. She was one of those people I immediately connected with. We were different in many ways but alike in all the important ones. What I loved (and still love) the most about her is her laugh. I had to google “words to describe laugh” to do this description justice as a “chuckle” or a “giggle” were not going to suffice.
According to Google, her laugh is a mix between a “chortle”: a soft, partly suppressed laugh and a “break up”: to laugh unrestrainedly. I realise these descriptions are at odds, but I do believe that they are the most fitting to describe said laugh, which begins now… It starts soft, this must be the “chortle” side of the laugh but very quickly, it grows unrestrained and her face freezes into a huge grin with repeated “ha ha’s” escaping her mouth. Her eyes well with tears as she wipes them away from her red cheeks through the laughter. The fit lasts for minutes, coming to an end with some heavy sighing before she recomposes herself.
It’s pure joy.
After knowing each other for 6 months we booked a trip to South America to hike and explore the wilderness. It was on this trip, somewhere between Chile and Argentina, that we spoke about the concept of “the lives we could live”, imagining all the different personas we could adopt and paths we could choose for ourselves. It wasn’t a big theme of our trip (chasing down the best Empanada took the front seat), but it’s something that really stuck with me.
7 years on, this friend is still someone very important to me. We’ve travelled the globe together, bunkered down in COVID together, lived out our share-house party days together, cried together (mainly me), drunk copious amounts of alcohol together, gossiped together and grown together.
She’s seen me and been in the direct circle of impact for my breakdowns, breakups, breakthroughs and breakdances (shout out to Shaz, the disco ball hanging from our living room ceiling). She found a way to love and support me as I’ve explored the different lives I could live and uncovered the various versions of myself over the years.
The sad reality is that not all friends can be like this and, whilst I am still on this journey of making sense of friendship loss, it’s not always someone’s ‘fault’. When you’re living this expat life and constantly recreating versions of yourself, it’s hard for old friends to continue to subscribe to the next season when the main character has changed, and the supporting actors are all different. It is sometimes better for certain friends to stop watching the series before they start to become frustrated at how silly the storylines are becoming and disconnected to the protagonist’s journey.
I realise this can sound a bit sad and believe me, I’ve shed (and will continue to shed) many tears over some friends I’ve lost on the way, but the truth is, some friendships are meant to be for life and others are meant to only be incredibly wonderful chapters in each other’s books. And how lucky am I to have both.
Thank you to all my lifelong friends that continue to press play each season and an even bigger thank you to the friends that I may have “lost” but that will always be a part of my story.
Written by Angelica Cifuentes
Born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Colombia, with professional roots in Argentina, and now a proud American citizen, Angelica Cifuentes-Hernandez's global journey fuels her unique design perspective. She is the founder of Presentora, a company that aims to revolutionize how teams create presentations, offering custom, captivating "done-for-you" solutions that free your team to focus on their strengths. Connect on LinkedIn to see how Angelica's diverse background and Presentora's innovative service can transform your pitching and marketing efforts.
Written by Amanda Cuffe
Originally from Sydney, Australia, AC has been moving around for the past 7 years. She currently resides in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean (lucky her!). For more of AC’s Excess Baggage, check out her entire Column.
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