Wow, time has somehow escaped! How can it already be January 20th? Where are all the those deep, insightful, thought-provoking posts that I planned to have on this sight?
Well...I do have one plausible excuse - taking time to finish working on the contents of the next issue of Among Worlds magazine. Now Joy, the wonderful graphic artist who makes it look so professional, has the contents to do her magic on!
I do appreciate the comments folks have been leaving - and my apologies for not answering them - just keep running out of time. No wait...time keeps running out on ME!
Keeping friends is somewhat like keeping time...they too will slip away too fast. In the article titled "Taking friendships with you", by Nora FitzGerald (see http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/24/news/afriends.php), she specifically touches on how to hold on to your friends/friendships - because time, and memory of friends, all too often slips away and we lose momentum and contact, but experience much regret.
How do you maintain the friendships you have made over the many schools/countries/languages/experiences that are (or have been) a major part of your life? I would love to hear your "solutions".
From my heart to yours,
Margie
Editor, Among Worlds magazine
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10 comments:
email makes it easier. i have also become rather addicted to blogging (incidentally im not sure i was able to set it up right on here) and i jsut send friends the link and they can find out the lastest rant/rave/opinion/travel debacle by subscribing to it. they also appreciate the fact that im a lot more diligent with my typos and spelling in my blogs than i am in my emails!!!
I am not good at keeping in touch, even by email. I have many acquaintances whom I might accidentally run into every few years, but we don't even try to keep in touch. When we meet, we are like distant acquaintances (surprise, surprise). I suspect (I don't know) that even for people who live in one place, it might be natural for some friendships to build up and then fade away in various stages of life.
I also have a few beloved friends with whom I grew up and with whom I'd like to keep in touch but don't do it very well. Even though we have only seen each other every few years, we still feel pretty comfortable together. (If any of the Weaks kids are reading this, I'm back in Mexico working with my parents!)
I have also been blessed with two very close friends. As a threesome, we make a concerted effort to stay in touch. We talk online via skype once a week when we can, we email each other often, we try to see each other whenever we're in the same area (give or take a few hundred miles -- we all live far apart), and best of all: we share a journal. We each keep the journal for about two months, writing in it whatever we might say to each other over a cup of coffee, and then we send it on. I think that, more than anything else, has kept us connected.
Ingrid
I can definitely see myself pulling away from friends I know will leave soon or stay while I leave. I know it isn't healthy, but it's like picking a scab--tough habit to break. Sometimes, if they're deep friends I don't even realize I miss them until one day when I get news or a message from them, I may begin to cry.
A little different take on this. I'm having trouble as an adult TCK. My parents have just retired and come to the States and they have so many more resources for keeping in touch with friends than I did when I came to the states as a college student twenty some years ago. Of course, some of those things are technologies (e-mail and such) that weren't available in 1979. But it also includes money and a reliable car. My parents visit other retired missionaries living in the States when they get homesick; they have the ability to return to Brasil and renew their visas. I didn't have the resources to do either of these things when I came to the States, and it left me feeling isolated and lonely. All these years later, it makes me resentful of my parents and my resentment surprizes me. I guess the way forward is just to resolve to do better at keeping in touch with old friends now, this year. Anyone out there resentful after all these years?
Not resentful Anonymous...just nostalgic and sad.
It happens over and over like a well-worn overly played favourite record.
Seeing people come and go due to a lifetime of constant traveling tends to become more painful instead of easier as one grows older. Either you leave or they leave. It hurts all the same no matter which side you happen to be on.
Being a gregarious person, I often reach out and readily make new acquaintances. It comes easily, however I'm loathe to accord them the epithet of "friend" which I have come to believe has to be 'earned' in some way (it's a 2 way street). I find myself holding people at a 'distance' and refusing to allow them to 'grow on me' like a friendly fungus! LOL!
Ok that being said, yes email makes it easier. Blogging too (if everyone speaks the language you decide to blog in!), www.Skype.com, IM programs with webcams etc.
But it just cannot replace that wonderful closeness and connection you experienced when in the presence of that (those) friend(s).
It reeks of nostalgia and frustration...
Friends often mean more to me than perhaps even 'love' relationships. The latter can often come and go, but friendship can transcend those failed loves one experiences.
I'm in much the same situation "resentful anonymous," so I know that my every attempt to just "get over it" is only partially successful. What I try to do, however, is see situations (even minor ones) where my TCK-ness is helpful, where it gives me a unique richness. So while this year I can't travel to my home country, I can take whatever opportunities I find to enrich my life. I befriend the Argentine checkout girl at the grocery store. I enthusiatically try the food at the taco truck which parks at the corner of main on Thursdays in our town. And I hope my example reaches other people who see me. And if it doesn't--then I'm still richer and the people around me who let culture and language keep them back, well, they're poorer.
Yes, I think the best remedy--well, not remedy maybe--there's no easy fix for painful emotion, but help for resentment, is a rich life.
Hi Margie!
Thanks for your comment on my blog! Yes, that is really funny that there is only one letter difference between our blog titles!
Your blog is such a great idea, I've really enjoyed reading this post about friends, and will be exploring the rest of the site asap.
Would love to contribute! Please feel free to add my blog to your list of TCK blogs if you like.
Diana
www.amongstworlds.wordpress.com
Travel Girl: Email does make it easier to keep in touch with friends and family. Email is also much faster than blogging (as I have been finding out) but is it as personal?
Ingrid Anne: I like your idea of a shared journal - but would be afraid that the postal service (in whatever country) would lose it - and thereby lose all the "you" which has been shared. Wouldn't blogging be easier? Just asking...
Cuiabana: Picking a scab? I burst out laughing when I read your comment!
Anonymous: I know that there are a lot of us TCKs who struggle with that monster called "resentment". I find that I have to look within myself and find what it is that I am honestly resentful of - is it that the folks have more resources now - or is it that they still don't spend much time and travel with me but spend it with others, just as they did overseas? If only we had all the wisdom to know these things!
Karma: Agreed - being together in person is so much better than communicating via other means (phone, email, blog, etc.). Having said that, though, I would be quick to add that at least you are able to communicate on a daily/hourly/weekly basis vs. years ago when the only communication took 3 weeks each way - making the subjects a moot point.
RuthieDarkEyes: Definitely - live a rich life.
Diana: Glad to see your comment on here - and we have already added your blog site! Keep it coming!
Great topic! I'm afraid I have not done well to stay in touch with those I've left behind. I tried, at first, but with each successive move became quite overwhelmed with the task. I missed my friends, but keeping in touch with them all was impossible for me at the time, especially during those long, pre-internet years. My latest blog post touches more on the issue... I'd love to hear your comments! =)
Yes, blogging would be easier than sharing a journal, but it would be less personal. The journal comes in our own handwriting, with actual coffee (or tear) stains on the pages, and with things taped here and there such as a ticket stub, a dried flower, a candy wrapper, a picture that one of our children drew, etc. Blogging has definite advantages, but it isn't the same. None of us really trust the mail. So far we've managed to send it with people who are travelling. Sometimes it has spent a few weeks or months at an intermediary location, where one person has dropped it off and someone else will eventually pick it up and take it the rest of the way. The adventures that our journal goes through as it travels add to the charm.
Ingrid
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