Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned in my long-term friendships with women.

I know how it feels for identity to be bigger than just you; to be part of an “us.” I know what it’s like to overhear Farly saying, “We don’t really eat red meat,” to someone across the table or to hear Lauren say, “That’s our favorite Van Morrison album,” to a boy she’s chatting up at a party. I know how surprisingly good that feels.

It is futile and knackering to try and make all your tiny choices representative of your moral compass then beat yourself up when this plan inevitably fails.

“Jesus, I am not going to be able to stop thinking about him.” “In, like, a sex way?” India asked. “No, I don’t think so. In a I-want-to-eat-your-soul way. I just want to find out everything about him, I want to listen to everything he has to say.”

The coolest boys are always tall and Jewish and have a car.

For two months I cried every Friday afternoon. Every Friday night I slept for ten hours.

Don’t fake orgasms. It does nobody any good at all. He is more than equipped to handle the truth.

So that’s why I was there. The penny dropped. I thought I had a fear of falling, but really I just didn’t know who I was. And the stuff I used to fill up that empty space no longer worked; it just made me feel even more removed from myself.

I said goodbye to the last ten years like an old friend. One I had finally outgrown, but would remember forever. Rambunctious, restless, and ramshackle. Roving, raucous, and rebellious. My roaming decade; my roaring twenties.