Emma Everafter
Emma by Jane Austen
Part 2
How to stay friends with your bestie when one of you gets married
After Andrea’s wedding, December passed quickly, filled with Christmas traditions and celebrations. And then came January, the month we all take stock of our lives, set goals and declare that this year is going to be the best year yet. I was busy setting resolutions and planning out the new year just like everyone else, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just lost my best friend. It was a bit ridiculous, I knew, but it was there all the same. Separated by hundreds of miles, we barely see each other once a year. We no longer get to do everything together. We no longer have a friend constantly at our side. We no longer share everything. It had been like this for years. But now she was now someone’s wife, and I felt suddenly alone. Somehow nothing and everything had changed.
“Sorrow came- a gentle sorrow- but not at all in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness. Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend, that Emma first sat in mournful though of any continuance.””
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The beginning pages of Emma chronicle Emma’s feelings and daily life after her friend, governess, and confidant, Miss Taylor, gets married and moves away. Emma too, finds herself alone after experiencing such a vibrant friendship. What is she to do now?
I thought about everyone in my life- my family, my friends, the people I worked with and the people who were acquaintances. The longer I thought and the more I searched, I came to realize that I couldn’t think of anyone who was single. Not one. They weren’t all married, but they had a steady, significant other. And there I was, still standing by myself. I’ve always been independent, always doing my own thing, always striking out on my own for a new adventure. So why was this different? Why did it mean so much more now than it did before? I had never been that concerned with my relationship status, but the major change in Andrea’s relationship status shook me, just as Emma was affected by Miss Taylor’s marriage.
With most of her social circle assorted into pairs, Emma decides she’s going to fill her life with matchmaking. Emma’s matchmaking endeavors are a bit disastrous and by the end of the novel, she realizes she has no business messing with others’ hearts. In fact, she doesn’t even know her own heart.
But I do know my own heart. I’ve had plenty of time to think things through. I know who I am. I know what’s happened to me. And I know that I want to live a certain way. Being on my own has given me that time of self-discovery that most people only do when they’re in the small amounts of time between relationships. I know who I am, and I know who my friends are. In this world, those things aren’t always certain, but they are for me. And it doesn’t matter if I’m single or dating or if my friends are single or married.
““The intimacy between her [Harriet] and Emma must sink; their friendship must change into a calmer sort of good-will; and, fortunately, what ought to be, and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural manner.” ”
Our world is full of change, and our relationships cannot survive unless we are open to change. Andrea may be someone’s wife now, but that doesn’t alter the foundations of our friendship. We love each other like family. That will never change. And as long as we continue to dedicate our efforts to remaining friends despite the distance, our friendship will not change either. I know who I am. I know who she is. And I know who we are together.
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