More often than you want to, you can catch yourself thinking about absent friends. People you have met along the way and that, for one reason or another, have stayed in your life and become part of it. When you have moved around, lived in different places or countries, these friendships are so important...they keep you grounded, they remind you of so much, they cannot be replaced.
Today I had a long conversation with Thelma, one of those friends. We haven't seen each other since 1996!!! A lifetime....but we can fall into conversations so easily, laugh out loud, discuss our children and the changes that have come as they have become adults. We talked this time about going back to our countries (she to the Philippines, I to Panama) for visits and how we cannot relate anymore to the friends we left behind or the family we still miss and about the strangeness of everything that once was so familiar.
Our mothers are still living there, needing our help and our support. We need to travel to see them, to solve problems, to keep that link alive. Still, it is becoming more and more difficult and we feel guilty....what to do. We cannot changed the decisions we made and the life we chose, we have been happy with those. We cannot just dismiss so many years...on the other hand, some places have felt more like home than others and we miss those too. The friendships we made and the things we did, the fun we had. It is truly amazing, but I think this is part of growing older in strange places...not even our familiar and favorite ones: like Curaçao!!!
Yes, we did talk about that too because we met there and we shared so many things and our children are friends and.....Oh, well....It is true, that island had something for so many of us. Most of my friends at this time of my life, the ones that mean the most, I met there or at the very least I met because I went to live there!! So, we decided we need to meet soon and then plan a trip together to Dushi Korsow. That instantly lifted our spirits and planning is on its way!!!!
Today I had a long conversation with Thelma, one of those friends. We haven't seen each other since 1996!!! A lifetime....but we can fall into conversations so easily, laugh out loud, discuss our children and the changes that have come as they have become adults. We talked this time about going back to our countries (she to the Philippines, I to Panama) for visits and how we cannot relate anymore to the friends we left behind or the family we still miss and about the strangeness of everything that once was so familiar.
Our mothers are still living there, needing our help and our support. We need to travel to see them, to solve problems, to keep that link alive. Still, it is becoming more and more difficult and we feel guilty....what to do. We cannot changed the decisions we made and the life we chose, we have been happy with those. We cannot just dismiss so many years...on the other hand, some places have felt more like home than others and we miss those too. The friendships we made and the things we did, the fun we had. It is truly amazing, but I think this is part of growing older in strange places...not even our familiar and favorite ones: like Curaçao!!!
Yes, we did talk about that too because we met there and we shared so many things and our children are friends and.....Oh, well....It is true, that island had something for so many of us. Most of my friends at this time of my life, the ones that mean the most, I met there or at the very least I met because I went to live there!! So, we decided we need to meet soon and then plan a trip together to Dushi Korsow. That instantly lifted our spirits and planning is on its way!!!!
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