Tuesday, July 20, 2010

friends from afar

I sometimes think how strange a simple fact of my life (and that of many, for that matter) is and/or can be. In the 39 years I've lived on this earth, I've made many friends and met many times as many other people. Some of my friends have traveled in many directions since, moving from one side of the world to the other.

For example, Anna moved back to TX after living like a decade in NYC.

Christine moved Seattle, WA, after living in NYC for several years.

Coto moved to his native Chile with his family. Dency and Gina also moved to Chile to accept separate jobs (weird coincidence). That's three of the elementary/high school gang spread though out Chile.

Dina (NY born and bred) moved to Israel.

Eileen lives in NJ and recently moved further in that state -- a little over an hour away from NYC.

I-An first moved Australia and then back in her native Taiwan. Her sister I-Chun in the other hand moved to San Francisco, CA.

Julian first moved back to his native Argentina, then to Seattle and recently to Iceland.

July and Cachi moved to FL -- the same state where my grandfather moved close to two decades ago.

Lisby moved to Sweden where her husband is from.

Sandra might be moving to NC this fall.

Tony (my best friend in elementary school) moved to Lebanon after the sixth grade.

Yanny moved to VA with her husband and children. By the way, her sister Gaby also moved there.

Of course, there are many others, but I can't recall them all right now.

Meanwhile I moved back to NYC where I lived as a child and surprisingly the youngest of my two sisters (18 months older than I) moved to Spain several years ago.

I also have "pen pals" in Britain and Italy (where my great grandfather was born).

It's funny and interesting how we can all use technology (internet and email, especially) to keep in touch and still make fun of one another. There's no way the constant and mutual teasing was ever going to stop.

At the end of the day, we're all nomads making the whole world our playground without limits of any kind. As long as we have our technology and gadgets, we seem to be happy.