I don't need the village, just her.

An unconventional manifesting script. Not for a lover, but for a best friend.

Let me tell you a not-so-secret secret: I’m a recovering extrovert.

Yep—once a loud, hyper-social, always-the-first-to-volunteer kind of girl—turned soft. Inward. A silent lover of solitude.

Well, really, I didn’t turn into anything at all. No. More accurately—I’ve been demolishing the walls I once built to protect myself, allowing everything that wasn’t my authentic self crumble away, until all that is left is the truth of who I’ve always been.

A hot-beverage-sipping, book-obsessed, little writer nerd with a side obsession for hobby-philosophy.

Once upon a time, I thought connection meant crowds. I believed the bigger the group, the more love in the room. The more people who breathed the same air, who knew my first name at the very least—the more valuable I must be.

Oh boy, how I was wrong.

It all came crashing down after high school. That’s when the illusion dissolved. Where were all these so-called friends now?

Off living their lives. Finding their people. And me? I was standing alone, blinking into the void, realising that the last five years mustn’t have been about true friendship.

No, for most of us, it was only a means to an end. Survival.

Because school—we eventually realise—is just one long, awkward social experiment. A fluorescent-lit institution where the bell dictates your movement, your clothing is restricted to regulation, and you’re expected to eat lunch at a designated time, whether you’re hungry or not.

(Don’t worry—I won’t go too deep into the de-schooling rant. Not here. Not yet.)

You know though, what stuck with me the most wasn’t just the loneliness. It was the lie. The lie that proximity equals connection. That being known by many is the same as being seen by one.

But anyway, life moved on. As it does. And I did what many young, lonely people do—I went looking for my person. My mate. My ride-or-die. The one who wouldn’t flinch when I deep-dived into my feelings at 11:47pm on a Thursday.

And I found him.

Six years ago, somewhere between life and death, the universe sent me the man I would marry. And together over the years we’ve built the life we used to conspire about on those long drives into the forest at midnight, or between panted breaths under the sheets.

Then came our daughter—our dream wrapped in skin and stardust. The child we manifested for, prayed for, set an altar for. Here. Finally, at last.

And just like that, I had what I’d been longing for my whole life: a safe landing. A secure, soft place to finally belong.

A real family.

One rooted in best-friend-ship. One balanced with belly laughs and bone-deep devotion. A love story that, if you told someone else about it—hell, even as I write it here—I know some people would roll their eyes and think, “Yeah, okay. Settle down.” But it’s real.

And I suppose that’s when you start being bombarded with the narrative…

“You know, it takes a village to raise a child.”

“There’s nothing more sacred than raising babies surrounded by a circle of women/people.”

“You’re not meant to do this alone.”

And look. Bless them. I know it’s meant well. I really do.

There’s a longing there. A widespread hunger for something we’ve lost. A craving for true connection.

And the truth is, that kind of village did exist once. In some places, it still does.

But let’s not kid ourselves.

Whatever’s being curated and captioned on our feeds in 2025? That’s not that village. That’s the aesthetic of a village.

It’s less ancestral wisdom, more Pinterest-core with a sourdough starter and beef tallow skincare. A curated grid of linen dresses, hand-carved wooden toys, and ten overstimulated women with three-year-olds trying to raise each other while they’re still figuring out who the hell they even are outside of motherhood.

And I don’t say that to mock. Truly. I understand the desire. I ache with it too, more often than not.

Because the real “village”? That WAS powerful. Communal. Sacred.

In te ao Māori, community wasn’t a metaphor. It was literal. Lived. The whānau wasn’t about a nuclear setup, it was sprawling. Interwoven. Multi-generational. Your cousins were more like siblings. Your aunties were your other mums. And your grandmother—who I call taua in my dialect—was often the anchor. The one who carried the stories in her skin, who the younger wahine looked to because she’d lived enough life to bring the kind of held sense that soothed any young soul.

There was rhythm. Reciprocity. A shared knowing that stretched across generations. If one māmā was worn down to the bone, another would scoop up the pēpi without needing to be asked. If one pāpā was out of work, someone else brought kai. No shame. No guilt. Just collective effort, collective care—for the collective good.

And maybe that’s what we’re all yearning for.

Because let’s be honest: we’ve traded slow fires for air fryers. Hāngī for drive-thru. Skin-to-skin for screen-to-screen. Our food is pre-wrapped. Our connection is pre-filtered. And the collective is being unstitched, one reel-stitch at a time.

So, maybe you weren’t raised in a Māori community. Maybe your people didn’t sit cross-legged on flax mats or pass stories across the steam of a hot boil-up—but I bet your bones still know what it means to belong. To contribute. To be held by something bigger than a single self.

And what we’re being sold now? It’s not that.

Now, it’s “villages” made of WhatsApp threads you’ve muted. Mothers groups where you sit in a circle, pretending your toddler climbing the walls or chewing on something questionable isn’t bothering you, nodding like you’re totally fine—while secretly comparing your kid’s vocabulary to someone else’s kid named Oak River Mountain.

(And yes, I can make that joke—my daughter’s name literally translates to Angel Rainbow Ocean, okay.)

It’s connection made Instagram-ready. And it exhausts me.

I don’t want the crowd. I don’t want ten mums my age with ten prams and the creeping anxiety over whether I packed enough snacks, or if someone’s going to side-eye me because our kid only eats plants.

I don’t want the invitation out of obligation, just because we both happen to have children and belong to the same generation.

If I’m being really honest, I just want her.

Not the whole damn village. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe one day we’ll spread our wings wide enough to call in a little circle so close we end up buying land together.

But for now?

A best friend would be divine.

I don’t have the capacity to track the energy in a room full of people. My nervous system needs a filter, not a funnel. I want depth over range. Resonance over reach. Someone who already knows what I mean when I say, “I need to debrief.”

Give me…

• Afternoon tea dates made from whatever’s left in the pantry, plus a half-melted carob chocolate someone’s toddler didn’t finish.

• The kids out the backyard with the dads, making “potions” with dirt and water, while we unpack our latest identity crisis over a cuppa.

• Surprise bunches of dahlias from Woolies because she saw them and thought, God, she’d love these.

• Regular Tuesday night dinners because home feels a little off if we haven’t sat in each other’s energy for a while.

I don’t want to network. I want to conspire. I want to toss wild ideas across the table over chamomile tea—and then actually bring them to life.

I want a best friend who texts, “Okay, what about this…” and I’m already laughing, because whatever it is, I’M IN.

Because I’m a dreamer. And she’d be a dreamer too.

What I crave isn’t the village. It’s her.

The one who texts on a rainy day, “Are you guys home? We’re coming over. We’ve got food and a movie. The weather’s fucking perfect, isn’t it?”

Not the kind who walks in unannounced—God no, that would send both me and my husband into a full-blown panic. But she knows that. She gets us.

Instead, she’d wait for the okay, then show up with containers of something warm, give our daughter a big cuddle on the way in, and ignore the mess without even trying. She’d see the fatigue in my face and wouldn’t say, “You should sleep more.” She’d say, “Babe, you’re doing so well. I’m proud of you.”

And she wouldn’t just bring the softness. She’d bring the fire.

She’d want to play big in the world. To leave a mark. To build a legacy that hums louder than the rinse-and-repeat filling our feeds and would make it so beautiful it outlives us both. We’d probably end up collaborating on something bold and innovative, because our visions would meet at the same frequency.

She’d be sharp. Talented. A little insane in the best kind of way. The kind of funny that makes your cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

And that’s how she’d see me, too.

We’d plot trips together, knowing there are some truly ridiculous Airbnbs out there—deep bathtubs, forest views, fire pits we could sit around for hours. All we’d need to do is pool our money, share a place, and pitch the plan to our partners with a whiteboard, a loose itinerary, and a devilish promise, “we’ll have the best time ever if you just say YES.”

And our partners? They’d hit it off from day one. Cooking barefoot in the kitchen. Building things just for the satisfaction of it. Talking even louder than us. They wouldn’t just hover politely with silent nods while we had our moment. They’d drop in too. Fully.

There’d be truth and banter. Next-level-shit and sarcasm. They’d speak about fatherhood from the soul. About their dreams with conviction. They’d go for long runs or slow walks, talking about the tension between ambition, failure, family and how the fuck they’re managing to balance it all at once. They’d cry in front of each other because they knew it was safe. And they’d pull away from the hug with a soft, “I got you, bro.”

Because finally—finally—we’d have found the kind of people who don’t half-ass their hangouts. The ones who know we don’t have time for surface-level small talk, because this season of life is too precious to waste being polite and boring.

And my husband?

He’d turn to me saying he found a brother (or a sister) in her partner. Not just someone to tolerate, but someone he’d text first. Someone who actually asked how he was, and waited for the real answer. Someone who got it.

And I’d sit there, tea in hand, watching it all unfold and quietly melt.

I get the appeal. The village sounds like a dream on paper. Potluck dinners, pass-the-babies, at least one person free to water the plants while you’re on holiday. A rotating cast of helping hands and reassuring nods that say, “I know how you feel,” when everything is falling apart.

And for some? That works. That fills them.

But for me?

It’s too many cooks. Too many energies. Too many well-meaning hands in my metaphorical dish. I don’t want to be surrounded. I want to be understood.

Just one best friend who shows up, no matter what. Who knows how to hold space without turning into a messiah or a life coach. Not fifty half-friendships I have to emotionally babysit or tiptoe around.

Just one who gets it. And stays.

She wouldn’t flinch if I went quiet. Wouldn’t over-interpret. Wouldn’t need me to smile if I wasn’t up for it.

We’d have seasons. Gaps. Busy stretches where the texts are short and the voice notes are half-finished. But there’d be no doubt. No “are we still close?” questions. Because our friendship wouldn’t be built on frequency, it would be built on strength and genuine understanding.

She’d keep me honest. Not just with big dreams, but with the small patterns that keep me stuck. She’d nudge. Ask better questions. Send the link to something that actually helps—not to fix me, but to back me.

And I’d do the same for her.

We’d challenge each other. Check in. Celebrate the wins, sit inside the failures. Take turns carrying the weight when the other is too tired to name it.

So, no. I don’t want the village.

I just want the one who fits.

Who fits me. Who fits us.

Most days, that feels like an impossible dream to dream.

But I’ve felt this way before. I felt it when I wondered if I’d ever find someone like my husband. I felt it when we lost our first baby, and the possibility of falling pregnant again felt non-existent.

And yet, here I am. Husband by my side. Beautiful baby girl lying on my chest.

So maybe my best friend dream isn’t impossible after all.

Maybe I just haven’t met her yet.

J x.

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Reflective Exercise

Find somewhere comfy, get a journal or your notes app, whatever works. Make a cup of something warm (or cold, you do you), and give yourself a moment to drop into your body, however that looks.

Now, write a letter. Not to someone you already know, but to the relationship you want in life right now, one that you don’t already have. It doesn’t matter if it is romantic, platonic, ancestral, familial.

Write it as if it already exists. As if they’ve just stepped into your life. Describe them in detail.

How do they look? How do they speak to you? What kind of presence do they bring into a room?

Where do you meet them? What do you co-create together? What does it feel like to be in their company?

Get bold. Get specific. Blow through the glass ceiling of what “you think you deserve.”

This isn’t about just listing traits, it’s about feeling into the shape of the connection as if it’s already unfolding.

And when you’re done, trust your intuition on what comes next.

Maybe you fold the letter up and tuck it in the back of your drawer. Maybe you bury it in the garden. Maybe you burn it. Maybe you read it aloud under a full moon. Whatever you do, follow your own prompt.

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Hi, I’m Jesse—wife, mother, multi-passionate artist, and storyteller. I write from my mini library sunroom—a small, aesthetic corner of the world filled with books, tea, and too many ideas. Around here, you’ll find reflections on chasing your dreams, breathwork, self-mastery, and literally anything else that feels true in the moment (expect a mixed bag). I usually drop a reflective prompt at the end, and if you’re open to jamming in the comments, I’d love to hear what’s true for you. I’ve turned off paid subscriptions for now, so everything here is free—but if you ever think, “Hmm, I like reading this lady’s writing,” here’s my book trophy & TBR wish list. I’ll never say no to someone supporting my book collection. I mean, I am a fantasy writer after all. Let’s call it funding research.