- originally published January 16, 2015 -
We met because we all graduated from high school or college and were suddenly left out in the “real world,” or whatever that means. We met because we moved to the same city, or took a vacation in the same country, or because we knew each other when we were little and decided to start writing letters again. It doesn’t matter that you live half way across the world. Let’s be friends now, while we’re both here in New York City. Let’s be friends while we are hiking through the mountains in Germany. Let’s be friends now, because right now, we are together.
You can meet them at any time in your life. I met a lot of them this year. Those travel friends. You bond because you’re all on an adventure. Racing the clock: three months here, two months there. One week, one year. You bond fast because everyone is out of their comfort zones. After all, it’s very important to have a friend to go to the grocery store with, or someone to meet for lunch in the park. I remember standing in subway stations saying goodbye to these travel friends. And staring at the skyline from Astoria Park, talking about how “you’ll go home to Sweden,” “She’ll go to Rwanda,” and “I’ll be somewhere, not sure yet.”
There are some friends that live nearby for a long time. They are wonderful, deep, irreplaceable friendships. But there are some friends that you get to spend time with for just a few short months, or maybe a year, or a few years, and they mean just as much as those you’ve known for your whole life. This post is kind of a nod to the many friendships of this nature that I made over the past few years. The world is so big and so small. I’m glad our paths crossed somewhere in this big and small world.