The sentimental shoe

With today's greater ease in communication I think we all get a bit of a sense of false security as far as maintaining our relationships with other people. Have you or any of your friends moved to a different country? Those who move abroad have to re-do all their homework on who their local friends are, which places they like, and what job or studies they attend, which for most people doesn't leave much time to maintain the friendships from the past.

How many of your friends have you not seen or talked to in the past year? We all email and call, but in most cases, unless the people on the other end are truly close in some way, you lose touch. After a while you could even ask yourself if it's still worth bothering to make friends anymore. If you have family abroad things get even more complicated. How often do you visit, talk, or write? How much is enough?


Through my experience of being away from home for the past 3 years, I found that the distance can have a variety of consequences on my relations with people. Some of my relationships with friends and family back home have actually gained in quality, since both sides try to make the most out of the little we have. Others, though, through negligence or having to get on with my life in new places, have slipped away. So since the good ones stay and the not-so-close go, is this in fact a good process, which works as a kind of a filter, where only the relevant ones stay? Not sure.

It's hard to be there for people and be close to them when you're away, but it can be done if only you try hard enough. If that's a kind of a life you live, and you keep going, you end up creating new communities wherever you go - what can I say - it must work, otherwise people wouldn't really want to live their lives like that, would they? Foreign places, people, cultures, always carry some excitement, freshness, and stimulation. But in all the moving, shopping, and making new friends, we should all try our best to stick to the ones we value and love - in a greater perspective those are few and far between.

Keep in touch, everyone.

This post's topic was inspired by an article I read in the IHT called 'Taking friendships with you'. Here's the link if anyone wants to read it as well: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/24/news/afriends.php