The True Value of Friendship
(Written originally in Spanish, translated with AI's help to English)
Whenever I mention to people that I lived five years in Scotland, many assume I tolerate the cold well, but that's definitely not the case. I don't like the cold, which is probably why I've been living in a subtropical country for over 8 years and I love it! Actually, if I don't see the sun for a few days... I get headaches and slip into hibernation mode by default 🐻❄️.
Similarly... even though I've packed my life several times, I haven't gotten used to it. On the very contrary, each goodbye seems to hurt more as time goes on.
Especially when the value of friendship is no longer individual, but multiplies by the members of your family. Your friends are no longer simply "your" friends (those youth friendships born from shared likes/dislikes or musical tastes) but rather their children become friends with your children and your husband becomes friends with their husband. And these friendships sometimes even transcend differences in age, in culture, they don't depend on whether you went to the same school or university. They are truly a blessing and are rooted in something much stronger...
Early this year we went to our home country to visit family and friends, and saying "see you later" (that "later" which, because of the distance and the cost of flights to South America, is measured in years rather than months)... it really breaks your heart and makes you question all of life's decisions. 🥲
And just recently we had to say "see you later" to our friends in Taiwan (I imagine this one will be a "much sooner" because distances within Asia are not that bad... ) 🥹
In retrospect, and writing almost a month after leaving Taiwan, I'm reflecting on how difficult it is to put into words the whole Salad of Emotions that I was slowly mixing together.
As we approached the departure date, more and more feelings kept piling up.
The moment to say goodbye to the country we lived in for 8 years, and the city filled with our children's childhood memories.
Saying goodbye to the music teacher who taught the children for 7 years,
the art teacher who cultivated so much creativity...
to school friends, their primary schools,
to our favorite dentist 💜,
to the "familiar" and to our weekly routines,
to our local church!
And of course, the hardest part, saying "See you later" to friends who are like family and our support system. Especially when they love our children just as they are and have known them since they were little.
When we first arrived in Taiwan, we were living the "married with small children" stage... two kids under 4 years old. In my opinion, that's not the easiest stage of life to make friends. On many occasions... and I'm not exaggerating, while we tried to have brief conversations with other adults, our kids would most likely:
a) start crying about something
b) run off for no reason
c) or worst of all, get into a fight with the child of the person we were trying to talk to!
During that season, the feeling of loneliness as a mother was constant, and add to that the pandemic (COVID), and the challenge of learning a new language. Making friends and connecting with the community turned out to be more complicated than expected. Many times I swung between wanting to give up (isolate myself) and pushing through the effort to connect and meeting frustration.
That's why when you finally form close friendships: both with adults and children, it's such a blessing and a gift from God. Those friendships where you can be your true self, vulnerable, and where you celebrate each important life moments together, good and bad. It's in that situation that it becomes even more painful and difficult to say goodbye... to shift the dynamic to something that took so much effort to find and nurture. And to trust that it will keep growing, just in a very different way.
Because of all this, this salad of emotions kept taking form, one that I'm still trying to process and that I hope, by putting it into writing, will help me "digest" it a little.
🥗 Ingredients for the Salad of Emotions:
100g of Overwhelm and Relief
1 tablespoon of Micro-grief
3 teaspoons of Guilt
200ml of Hope
2 tablespoons of Worry
1 teaspoon of Satisfaction
1 teaspoon of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
Emotion and excitement
10,000,000 kg of Gratitude
500g of Sadness and Nostalgia
Joy and Existential Crises to taste
👩🏻🍳 Preparation:
Add the 100g of Overwhelm and Relief to the bowl. The to-do list for a big move is not as fun as when you go for a leisure trip. Authenticate documents, Apply for visa, buy airplane tickets, cancel services, and so on. Over a three-month period we started selling and giving away all our material things. Hundreds of Lego pieces, dozens of sticker sheets. Clothes that no longer fit or had holes 😅. Furniture, appliances, etc. And the hardest part for me personally: Books. Finally, I kept only the "essentials" and took comfort in the fact that they exist in digital form. My full-time job became: Facebook Marketplace Sales Manager. This was overwhelming and at the same time a relief(?!). A relief because in the end material things sometimes feel like enormous anchors.
*Note: This step of the recipe is like erasing every trace that you lived there, to hand the keys back to the landlord and leave the apartment just as they gave it to you, which adds to the salad its portion of grief...
Oh "Micro" grief! Even for tasks like selling our car became something super sentimental. Saying goodbye to our humble family car, which I should mention had its own proper name, was super-ultra-mega sad. And yes, it might sound silly and exaggerated, but we really did have many adventures and memories in that car 🚙💜 (and arguments, cookie crumbs and chaos of course).
Slowly pour in the 3 teaspoons of Guilt. Reporting to the public schools where our children studied that they would no longer be students there. This means they won't see their classmates/friends anymore... This parental guilt of "did we do the right thing?" Only God knows.
Dilute the two tablespoons of Worry about the uncertainty with the 200ml of Hope. "For I know the plans I have for you—declares the LORD—plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11), even as we face so much uncertainty.
Add one teaspoon of Satisfaction and FOMO. Achieving our goals and starting a new season brings satisfaction, but also a touch of FOMO, in feeling like we're missing out on important moments with loved ones.
Definitely lots of excitement about what's to come.
And 1,000,000 kg of Gratitude in seeing God's goodness in the past.
Sadness and nostalgia are an intrinsic part of this recipe. Sadness for the physical distance and the irrational desire to be able to teleport ourselves to see loved ones. Nostalgia for those "good times" and also for the not-so-good ones that taught us a lesson.
And finally... the final touch, Joy and Existential Crises to taste!
The salad is prepared... it's mixed and seasoned. When you chew it, you taste sour, bitter, and sometimes sweet, salty flavours. But each part is good, it's part of life. Not everything is rosy, we place our trust in the One who doesn't change and is always present 🩵. Now comes the time to digest these emotions... to let them do their work. To hold onto what's good, what's edifying, what's noble, and slowly let go of the rest.
One thing we've learned in this process is the value and importance of relationships, friendships, with the local church and family both in our country of origin and in the nations that have welcomed us. This requires effort, investment of time, resources and actions, words, letters, postcards, video calls, intentional gestures to preserve, protect and maintain those relationships even from a distance. It means making time in our calendars the way we schedule work meetings or prepare for an exam. Sometimes it's complicated, but it's worth it. We hope to pass this on to our children as well. We were created to relate to one another deeply... to be "fully known and fully loved"... in relationships where grace abounds.
If you find yourself in a season of transitions or changes—whether it's post-motherhood, post-moving to a new country, learning another language, times of pandemic, illness, success, feeling lost in life, abundance or scarcity, whatever your circumstances... And especially for those of us who have moved cities/countries a few times, there's this question within us "Why bother?", or the excuse "I already have friends back home" and deep down this fear of opening ourselves up to new people because we don't want to go through it all again. Here's a reminder that it's worth making the effort to connect meaningfully with others! Whether you end up with the precious gift of lifelong friendships... or simply cross paths for a short season. No matter what the circumstance, we shouldn't stop trying, nurturing true relationships the way we invest in our studies and work, in our physical wellbeing, in entertainment, etc. Investing in relationships will always be worth it.
I'll end this reflection with these quotes from books that significantly marked my time in Taiwan:
"I can't recall most dinners, I forget too many books, and I don't remember 90 percent of the sermons I've heard; and yet all have sustained my body and soul in ways I cannot even begin to fathom. I might not be able to recall the vast majority of my conversations with friends, but I know they have sustained my soul through the years." — Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship
"The truth of grace is that our sins—even our nastiest ones—are not the things that prevent us from being loved. Those very flaws are what make us human, create our need for others, and make our reception of grace possible. Honesty about our sins becomes the path, not the barrier, to relationship." — Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship
If you read all the way to here... wow! Thank you!
I feel like I wrote this blog entry more to process everything and I don't expect anyone to actually read such a long post 😅. If you did read it, I hope it was helpful for whatever you're personally going through. And I recommend these books if you want to keep diving deeper into the topic:
O this podcast by Ruth Chou Simons.
Have a great day! :)
P.d to our friends... Thank you, words are not enough to describe all our gratitude for having you in our lives. And we do hope to see and hug you very soon!
Comments