Re-Connection
After months of COVID-induced confinement, my husband, David, and I finally decided to “fly the friendly skies” up to Illinois. It had been over 3 years since we visited with his family face-to-face, so we obviously wanted to reacquaint ourselves with as many of his siblings and their offspring as possible. Additionally, David’s High School Class was holding their 55th Reunion, and it had been many years since he had seen most of his classmates. Plus, it would be my first time to ever experience such an event. It was all very exciting.
Growing up in France, this is something totally alien to me. We have nothing comparable – no periodic gatherings to see how everyone is doing. I wish I had kept in touch with some of the friends I had in high school. It would be so much fun to be able to reminisce about events of years long gone.
When we entered the Reunion room for the first time, it was quite a shock for me to see it was full of old people – who happened to be the same age as me!!! It’s funny how we don’t see ourselves clearly until we have the opportunity to meet others born the same year.
What really struck me during the three-day gathering was how precious this all was. Sure, back in high school these folks had been in various clicks, and over the years they evolved into very different individuals with varied personal (and political) views. But for the hours they came together, I saw that, to them, none of that mattered. Rather, I witnessed a simple celebration of shared experience and time together. As one of the attendees explained, “Over the years, we raised a family, we became grandparents and even great-grandparents, we had professional lives and are now retired. Ego and competition aren’t part of our lives anymore.”
There was an unspoken acknowledgement that the time together NOW was the really important thing. After all, of the original 186 graduates, 41 had already passed on. For some, during this gathering, old friendships were rekindled; for others, new links were forged.
It’s quite sobering to realize that time is ticking and we need to make the most of the years passing by. Especially now, because each new year seems to arrive at a much faster pace.
As we shared our life stories with my husband’s classmates, some of them told us that our life sounded fascinating; we had lived around the world while they never moved away from their home town. Some sounded a bit regretful about not having traveled abroad. In some others, I could almost sense a tinge of embarrassment.
This makes me reflect on these two very different ways of life: leading a nomadic life or leading a sedentary life.
Moving is leaving behind what you know and your life as it has been and creating a new one in a new location, with new people, and sometimes a different culture. Even though we were lucky to be assigned to interesting locations such as Japan, Korea, and several European countries, a move is always very stressful. Based on stress level analysis, it ranks the same as the death of a loved one and a divorce. Regarding divorce, my husband and I developed a rule early in our relationship: never talk about divorce during the months immediately leading up to or following a move.
Despite all the challenges, once we arrived at a new location, I embraced my new life and was excited to discover the local culture. Our son, Kyle, had the chance to grow up learning about and appreciating different ways of life and respecting any creed and race. One time, In Thailand, when he was about 10, a man asked him where he was from. Now, Kyle has 2 passports, his grandfather was French and his grandmother Vietnamese, his father is American, I’m French, and at that time, we lived in Korea. He looked at me panicked and asked: “’What do I say?” I told my son to answer with the only words that came to my mind “citizen of the world”.
Although, there were times when I dreamed I would never have to move again, never have to pack and repack our entire household every other year, and never have to move away from my friends. Those who never left the US and in some cases, even their own state, have kept all the friends they made throughout life. There is a sense of stability and continuity we, who moved all around the world, don’t have. They have a home they enhanced year after year and a garden they saw mature. They never had to help their kids with the trauma of leaving friends and starting in a new school every other year. They never had to go through the trauma of packing everything they own into sealand vans and hoping it would make it safely to whatever part of the world they were next settling into. They never had to deal with living out of a couple of suitcases, in empty houses with borrowed furniture, a few months at a time every two years.
Like anything in life, there are two sides. Neither is right or wrong, better or worse. It’s both a matter of circumstances and a matter of choice. Some might love the excitement of living in various parts of the world, while others might prefer to stay close to the area they grew up in. Either way is fine, and either can bring happiness and a sense of a well lived life.
There is joy and excitement in the discovery of new ways of living but also joy and fulfillment in the stability of a permanent home. I now enjoy the fact I won’t have to pack our entire household ever again, only now and then pack a suitcase for a trip.
I now love our house decorated with artifacts from all around the world, and a garden we refine and nurture with each passing season – seasons that seem to come around at a faster rate.
It strikes me – no matter where we live, whether we live in one or several places – what matters most is to embrace what we have, to find the positive in it, and to share that positivity with all around us.