A few weeks ago, before my friend R left for Shanghai, we had drinks and she said: you know when you just know lots of great people from all these different times in your life and you just wish they could all meet each other and be friends?

I do know.

The only time the best people in my life meet each other is in my dreams. Not my fantasy dreams, but my real asleep dreams. You know those ones where you’re at work but people from primary school are there? Or you’re in your childhood home and your mum is cooking dinner but the woman from HR is your sister? Except it’s all the good people. Your best colleagues and your best friends and you’re in the best house you’ve lived in. That’s the only time my favourite people all come together.

Until now.

On Thursday I spoke to F in the morning. We don’t skype too often but she’s my best friend and as I explained to someone later that day, our love doesn’t acknowledge time. We speak and it is like we still live together, like no time has passed, like being around our kitchen table on Lorrimore Road. And in our conversation I tell her about what I’m up to and about my friend R, who is making a show in Shanghai.

F signs off after a couple of hours because she has to go to work – a theatre company she’s doing some admin for. When she gets in she checks their info email address and the first email in the inbox is someone called R, emailing from Shanghai. She messages me: is this your R?!
And it is.
And I reply: Tell her you’re my bestie! She’ll lose it!!

The theatre company are on tour in Shanghai. R works in the same style of theatre. She’d emailed requesting an interview, which went back to the main office in London. It’s a coincidence, but it all makes sense when you think about it.

But these are my people. Two of my most important, my favourite people in the world and they are meeting. Without me. Without the borders of distance.

I wake up the next day to a text from R: Did you hear I emailed F? My email was the first one in the inbox!
I reply: I did hear.
Then, on brand, I make a joke: I have spies everywhere.

But inside I am beaming. Inside I’m not being glib. My best friends are meeting each other. Across time and continents. In spite of everything, it is all finally coming together. Just like I dreamed it.

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^{A version of this post was sent by email on the 28th July 2019 as part of Internet Care Package – a weekly memoir project in the form of a newsletter. It also includes links to the best things I’ve found on the internet each week and occasional updates on my theatremaking. This blog is a select archive of those emails. Subscribe to get them right in your inbox.}

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