It seems I’ve been here long enough to witness people go full cycle. Everywhere I turn someone is packing up and moving on, and it’s left me feeling… I don’t know, sad? Displaced? Envious?
I’m used to being the one moving on. Our time in Dresden is the longest we’ve stayed put since before Sydney was born. And now here I am, attending going away parties; helping friends pack; bidding adieu to cyber-pals. It’s bizarre.
I suppose part of it is the expat way… we’re a nomadic tribe. And thanks to this nifty thing called the internet (created by none other than Al Gore!), you never really lose touch with anyone, do you? But still, the common bond… the essential shared experience that connected you in the first place… is gone. And who’s to say friendship should or could survive that?
I have a good pal leaving tomorrow who’s been crucial to my continued sanity over the past year. We bonded through mutual mockage of others at the gym. We scoured Dresden together in search of the perfect käsebrotchen, and just generally propped each other up when it felt like the whole expat thing was too much to bear. I’ll miss her.
Adding insult to injury, I’ve never been a big believer in the concept of keeping in touch. I mean, I genuinely care about the people I consider friends… I just suck at the follow-through. Once the commonality is gone (which is almost always proximity related), it seems like people just run out of things to say. Then they feel guilty and try harder, and pretty soon the whole thing feels like work, and who wants that? I’ll go years without thinking of someone, and then one random day I’ll feel their absence so strongly it stops me dead in my tracks. But by then there’s too much water under the bridge, so I’ll mark the day, yet the drive to do something about it is never there.
I guess that’s what’s left me feeling sad and a little awkward today. I’m fully cognizant of my limitations as a friend, so each goodbye is its own kind of death to me. But I’m normally the one moving on. I don’t have time to spread my feeling out before me like some sort of metaphysical post mortem. There’s no wallowing, and I like it best that way… with my eyes on the horizon looking toward a shiny new future that’s just waiting to be fleshed out.
Instead, here I am… stuck. Left behind with too much time to walk the same old streets, thinking the same old thoughts, and feeling terrified that this just might be the way it all ends. And maybe that’s the real bitch of growing older… it’s not the failing health or physical wear & tear. Instead it’s some sort of disembodied apathy you can’t seem shake, no matter how hard you try. You’re keenly aware of it, but momentum just isn’t on your side anymore.
.
*I think I’ll close this out now since I passed ‘too maudlin’ about 3 paragraphs ago. Sheesh!
On this day..
- Praise benadryl & pass the kleenex. - 2007
- Favorites. - 2006
“Disembodied apathy”? You so nailed it. This isn’t too maudlin, it’s real. I once read that “grief is the price we pay for love” and as masochistic as that can be at times, I totally think it’s worth it. You don’t wander the familiar streets alone.
You should try living here for 18 years. Now THAT’S maudlin.
:-)
I know what you mean about keeping in touch. Luckily I have one or two friends I can pick up with right where we left off even if we haven’t talked for months. Most of the others have kind of faded off into the distance.
christinas last blog post..we’ve got gas!
Wow, B. I feel the exact same way about keeping in touch - right down to the sudden realizations & inability (or is it a choice for which I don’t want to claim responsibility?) to reach out across great gulfs of time. I’ve never seen anyone articulate it before, let alone articulate it so well. Thank you.
I used to think I had wanderlust like that, but Regensburg is such a great fit that it would be a shame to leave here. Although, it’s been here for 2000 years now - if we do leave and decide we shouldn’t have, we can always find a way to come back.
“grief is the price we pay for love”
Hmmm, I think that one’s going to be rolling around in my head awhile….I can definitely relate to that, because of someone I was in love with a year ago & went away, pushing me away in the process….And I find that while not as intense as it was even a few months ago, I’m still grieving their absence in my life…
Friendships can be hard at the best of times B, all you can do is try to make the most of them as much as you can in the time that you have with them…….Hope that wasn’t too hokey, lol
I have a real need to keep in touch with those I care for and I have reached out, over gaps of many years to reconnect: you can. I give up on those who don’t reach back, though. Sometimes, when either1. depressed, 2. extremely busy, and 3. overwhelmed with family, it can be hard to keep regularly in touch. That’s why blogs!
Gs last blog post..Insomnia
Now I have ‘Leaving New York’ stuck in my head… “It’s easier to leave than to be left behind”
Juls last blog post..Important tip for tourists coming to Germany
Boy, can I relate! Every time someone I had come to love being around made the sayanora announcement, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I would try to imagine visiting them some day in some other country, but deep down I knew it would probably never happen. As you said, it’s the expat way to move on to other adventures, but when you’re the one getting left behind, it hurts too much. Even when I was the one who left, I knew all about the empty promises to “keep in touch.”
Absolutely Tokyos last blog post..Excuse me but I think there’s someone living in my closet!
B-as a military wife in total denial-I get it…maybe “grief IS the price we pay for love” but how lucky we are to have people touch our lives, even for a moment. I agree that friendship shouldn’t require “work” but I believe that love is work, so, I guess that friendship sometimes is work. I listen to the likes of ee cummings, and choose to “carry you in my heart” when either a friend can’t keep up, or I don’t.
Our daughter’s birthday is tomorrow, and her closest friend (with a German parent) left today to live in Florida-forever (of all g-d foresaken places!) Watching the girls, feeling the emotion of their goodbye, aching for their youth and inexperience, hopeful that they can keep a morsel of this beautiful friendship alive…it was definitely “a moment.” Goodbyes aren’t easy.
Dresden might not feel the same for a bit, but rest assured, you have cyber friends willing to do the work…and that post wasn’t maudlin, it was real.
Thanks guys. Since posting this I’ve eaten an entire box of Oreos and re-watched 3 seasons of Ab Fab. My yin & yang are on speaking terms again, which is pretty much all I can ask…
Ab Fab! “Surfaces, darling. I need surfaces!!!” One of my all-time faves! Watching those episodes is enough to cheer anyone up!
Absolutely Tokyos last blog post..Excuse me but I think there’s someone living in my closet!
Oh girl, this one really hit home hard. And that’s all I can say about that at this point in time. Hugs.
more cowbells last blog post..A Couple of Months in the Life