Dear friend,
I’m writing this the night before you’ll read it. Often, I have these bursts before bed where ideas flood my mind, and I decide then that it’s time to correspond.
I haven’t been avoiding you, but it’s proving difficult to meet with the friends I aim to write about. My latest delay can be blamed on Mr. Shaw, friend #19. He’s been helping his brother move; this week, he’s on a motorcycle trip, and we haven’t sat down as friends in over a year! Somehow time has just flown by despite our frequent texts of coffee plans.
When I first worked on meeting or reconnecting with 52 people, the project was my main priority. I was obsessed with it. Someone once commented that having 52 friends is a full-time job, and to be honest, at the time, it almost was.
There was also a natural cadence to it. I’d meet someone and write about them. Reconnecting with those same people and maintaining a schedule are proving difficult—the reality of adulthood.
My friends remain a priority in my life, and it’s routines—to document that, I’m switching up the plans. Instead of assigning numbers to people, which started to confuse me, I’ll write about the friends I do meet.
Last week, I visited Cynthia and Christopher (friends #47 & 48) in London, Ontario. They just welcomed a baby girl named Emilia. Seeing my friend who I met at 16 become a mother was a magical feeling. I hadn’t seen the two since I wrote about them almost three years ago, but I cherish my friendship with Cynthia so deeply, and now that two became three, I’m sure I’ll be making the trip to London more frequently.
Top of the list for summer is Luigi’s (friend, #10) Maltese destination wedding at the beginning of September. You may know by now that we never spoke in university, so the me then would be shocked to know that I’m travelling to Malta for his wedding.
Otherwise, my August birthday awaits, and I’m busy with work. Hopefully, next time, I manage to sit Mr. Shaw down for a coffee!
This week’s stars are Fazia & Melissa
Melissa was my first customer when I started selling jewelry. I believe it was sometime in November 2023, when I posted a vintage emerald ring on Facebook Marketplace. A beautiful ring that led to a mailbox full of inquiries.
For some reason, I looked at Melissa’s profile picture, a photo of her with her daughter and thought, “This woman looks safe; I’ll sell to her.”
I was new to jewelry then and barely understood its value, so I gave her my address, and she appeared at my doorstep. That purchase led her to refer her friend Fazia to my business, and for the first months, they were my best customers (though I stopped selling from home aside from the two!).
It’s been two and a half years since then. Fazia and Melissa have seen me develop Simon & Gloria, study gemology, and open my studio. Every so often we meet for coffee, and they act as hand models for rings.
They feel like my friends as we converse in Melissa’s backyard. Her beautiful garden and pool set the backdrop of an easy conversation.
On the exterior, Fazia and Melissa look like total opposites, but when they met 21 years ago, their similarities were immediately obvious.
“We met at the nursery school in the neighbourhood,” says Melissa. They were both dropping off their daughters, who were three at the time.
“The commonalities were freaky,” she says.
Throughout her childhood, Melissa spent a lot of time at Yonge and St. Clair—her mother was a performer and singer who liked the restaurants in the area. Fazia grew up in that area as well, making it easy to reference their childhood, despite meeting in their late 30s.
A shared love of vintage and antiquing has brought them closer, and over time, they’ve found themselves developing similar taste.
"Sometimes I’ll pick something up and think, ‘Do I like it cause I like it, or because Melissa will like it,” says Fazia.
Melissa is really glad that she found Fazia, while Fazia calls Melissa a breath of fresh air. Personally, I love their authenticity—a sentiment Melissa’s daughters echoed when I interviewed them for Mother’s Day.
It’s when we meet people who are comfortable being themselves that we feel most comfortable being ourselves, and to find that in another person is a lucky thing.