>>>24 PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE APRIL 2020It’s now or never
Is there someone in your life you would like to be closer
to, but feel too shy to make the first move? For Amy Pierce,
it was her godmother, and she decided to take actionL
ast year, I went to a concert with my godmother,
who is in her late 70s. Nothing unusual about
that, you may think but, for me, there was –
I had only ever met up with her on rare occasions
and our past was complicated. I am so glad that I invited
her to that concert and we are now in regular contact.
I care about her deeply and I enjoy having her in my life.
For me, this had become a ‘now or never’ relationship.
With a backdrop of turbulent and worrying times globally,
reaching out to another person in the hope of forming a
closer bond seems far less daunting; what better buer
against the di culties we face in this world than to
nurture yourself with positive relationships?
The worst that can happen is that the person wants to
keep the status quo and you can’t miss what you don’t have.
Surely it is better to feel empowered by the fact that you
tried than to have the gnawing regret that you didn’t?I had always admired my godmother. She had a
childhood illness that almost killed her and credits
the NHS, then in its infancy, with saving her life – but the
disease left her with a disability. This didn’t deter my
godmother, quite the opposite; she got a senior job at a time
when few women had a career, let alone took charge.
Every Christmas and birthday, her presents were the
ones I wanted to open first. They were always thoughtful
and suggested that she knew me better than I thought.Are you my friend too?
My godmother lived and worked in London, which felt
impossibly glamorous to me growing up in the countryside,
250km away. It meant that her visits to our house were
infrequent but, when she came to stay, she made our
household calmer and we always got on well together.
But my godmother was my mother’s friend, and my >>>