Love Story: 20th Best Friendaversary

Over and over again Lormarev and her friend group have contacted me about photographing events that are different, that stand out. Events that might not be your typical life celebrations but instead make sure to include everyone in their circle. When Lormarev called me to ask if she could surprise her best friend of 20 years Laura with the gift of doing a shoot with her, I said YES!.... and then when I learned the shoot would be during their celebratory trip to New York City, you KNOW I said HELL YES!

Of the experience Laura writes, "We live in a society that tells us that the most important partnership in our lives is a romantic one. We are taught to value ourselves and celebrate each other based on whether or not we are IN one or are able to attract a romantic partner.

Trying to find the words or the label for what Lormarev Jones and I are has been difficult. I think she likes the term “soul mate” and I do not (I don’t know why, I’ll talk to my therapist about it, ok). Best friends gets tossed around a lot, but I am quite lucky to have a lot of close friendships that I have had for years, and the thought of ranking these people feels ridiculous to me. I think Lormarev called me “Life Mate” in the airport the other day, I enjoyed that. I tried heterosexual life partner for a while, but didn’t like that, because what does sexuality have to do with it? So I tend to go with “platonic life partner”. We have a platonic partnership that is very important to us.

Romantic partnerships are given the most weight, where we plan big ceremonies around their beginning, whole industries have grown up around those, and we have set traditions on how to continue to celebrate them as they grow in time - wedding showers, engagement parties, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers.

I want to give Lormarev most of the credit here, because she was 3 steps ahead of me in this line of thought when it comes to our friendship. She was the one who was like “It’s a 20th anniversary, what are we going to do?” I started going through some ideas, which included having a party and she said something that blew my mind “Laura, unfortunately I don’t think anyone would treat this the way they would somebody’s wedding, they wouldn’t give it the same weight. I don’t think people would spend money to get on a plane and fly across the country for this and take a long weekend off of work and buy a gift and all of those things.” Society does not deem our 20 year friendship as important as a romantic relationship.

This twenty year partnership has been full of wonderful things, joy and laughter, love and light. It’s been 20 years of support, 20 years of holding onto each other through tears. It’s also been work. There have been fights and misunderstandings, times when we have annoyed the crap out of each other. Moments when we have had to learn or relearn how to love each other, how the other person needs to be loved. There have been phases when we talked to each other less, some where we have talked more. Times where we are on the same wavelength and times where we have to carefully ask the other person to explain where they are coming from so we can see their perspective. The pandemic was really interesting for us, because it opened the door for us to talk and be honest on a whole new level, we aired some shit out and it has been incredibly healing and has brought us even closer. She is my partner. And we have a twenty year long successful partnership. And if people get to celebrate their successful romantic partnerships, why should our success platonic one be given any less weight."

“Romance your friends. Platonic romance is a thing. All that sappy language about loving someone more each day, I feel that with my friends. I adore them. I want to spend as much time with them as possible. I fantasize about us growing old together on a commune somewhere, where we all take care of each other. I love their families, I love giving them gifts, I love surprising them. I go on trips with my friends, we plan vacations together. I’ve traveled across coasts, oceans, countries to see my friends. My friendships span decades and continents. My friendships are epic. And they deserve to be celebrated."