Long-lost Friends

Any TCK knows how it feels to say goodbye to a friend, whether it’s because the friend moves or the TCK himself moves. Either way, even if you manage to keep in touch via the myriad of tools we now have at our fingertips such as facebook or msn, nothing can replace the face to face contact that existed before the move. Some people say that these days being a TCK is easier because of these new ways of keeping in touch, but without the human dimension a friendship essentially stalls. Sure, you can keep track of each other, but you can achieve little more with the internet.

I remember the first time I had to say goodbye to a close friend. I had a relatively stable first 8 years of my life, since I lived in the US all that time. I made a number of friends, but there was one in particular who I got on particularly well with. We used to go to each others houses to play pretty often (he had a younger brother as well), and we’d play outside (he had a tree house at one point, or we’d kick a ball around, etc.), or we’d play a computer game he had where you controlled a spaceship and had to shoot asteroids. There are loads of versions of that game now, but at the time (1990ish) it was relatively new. His Mom also made these chocolate chip cookies which I swear were – and probably still are – the best I’ve ever had.

When I was 6 or 7, his father was transferred somewhere else – I don’t even remember where anymore (possibly the UK, but that’s not certain). I’d never said goodbye to a friend before and because I was so young I’m not sure I really understood it all. The first few days he was gone I was very sad and cried a couple of times. Eventually the grief, I guess you can call it that, passed, as it does; especially when a little more than a year later it was my turn to leave (to China), and since then I’ve been saying goodbye to friends on at least a yearly basis.

This friend of mine is actually the only person I have purposely met up with after leaving a country. When I was 9 or 10, we met up one weekend in the UK. I was on holiday with my family and it was the first time in my life I was in that particular ‘home’ country (and it was only for the weekend), but he was there as well with his family so we got the chance to see each other again. I’ve seen a couple of people from previous moves since then, but we didn’t specifically make plans to meet – either it just so happened that we were attending the same event somewhere, or we ended up attending the same university (no close friends at the same uni though). But let’s face it, when you’re in your early teens, flying halfway around the world to meet up with old friends, as fun as it would be, isn’t the most affordable thing in the world.

Anyway, earlier this week I tried finding this friend of mine on facebook. I typed his name into the search field, hit enter and… came up with at least a dozen people with exactly the same name. It was then that it hit me – despite all the time we’d spent together and the experiences we’d shared, all I have to track him down is a name, which just isn’t enough. When he left the US, I didn’t have a computer, let alone e-mail. Snail mail would have worked, but, if I’m being honest, would have been too much for a 7 year old to keep up. It’s depressing and frustrating, because after all the time we spent together, due to circumstances out of our control, our friendship just… vanished.