Long Distance Friendship

Do you know that moment when you meet your old friend who you've been not seeing for along time? I am always having that anxiety questioning myself: 

Are they still the same person the last time I saw them? Do they still like me? 

I am afraid that everything has changed and they are not people I used to know.

October 2016

In October this year, I went home for holiday. I hadn't been home for more than 2 years, so again I was facing this anxiety, worrying if my friends in Indonesia have become people I can't really relate to anymore.

Luckily they didn't. As I saw them slowly approaching me laughing, I know they didn't. They are still giving me the same warm hug I'm missing. Those inhuman voices they make when chatting, how can I forget that.

Several years have passed but we continue talking about the same topics, laughing at the same jokes. 

It is funny to see my high school friends, who I used to met constantly everyday at the same place, now in different places. We are not doing the same thing anymore, we don't go to the same places, we don't read the same books. They are spread everywhere across the globe doing their own thing but they are still my loving friends I dearly cherish.

December 2016 

Recently some things occured in my life which related to friends I had. I am back to Germany, starting the new semester with full force after 2 weeks in Indonesia. Going home has given me a fresh start in the new semester. I have a close friend who I haven't been seeing for one year. He somehow disappeared into thin air. It was sad remembering how we are both so hyped about being a RWTH students, how we eagerly have done hundreds attempts to pass the assesment test, how we were both etremely happy to be accepted in RWTH, but he then vanished before the first semester even started. I have tried gazillion times to contact him, in which I failed. It became a routine to hear everyone asking the same question over and over again

People: Where is he?

Me: Unfortunately I also have no idea

People: How come? You are his close friend.

Me: I know right?

I bitterly smiled.

With no single trace left, I've never seen him since September 2015.

I have done everything I could to track my friend down but never got any results. I pretty much asked every indonesian I met here if they've seen him. I tried to contact him through any social media possible, but he didn't even read my text. At this rate I tried to forget it and convinced myself that he wanted to cut all his friendship. I was terrified, I lost a good friend.

At one friday night in December I suddenly dreamed about him. As it is to be said, dreams sometimes want to tell us something, I too strongly believe it so I tried once again, with all my might to contact him, hoping that he wanted to forgive me for not being a good friend who left him alone all this time. I even almost sent him a letter to his adress in Indonesia but I wrote a really long exaggeratedly sad text instead. It turned out he replied my message! He reappeared all of a sudden, without me even expecting it. 

I was startled how our conversations didn't change a bit from 2015. He is still that person I talked to in 2015. He changed at several aspects though,whereas he became wiser and less annoying (who am I fooling ?) in some way, but he is still that one friend I could get along with really well. We haven't talked for a long time, nevertheless it feels like I had a chat with him just everyday, like we used to do.

~~~

People is always changing, including your friends, no doubt about that. Physical distances always seem threatening our bonds, but it is the emotion that is in the running. 

Perhaps they are now looking a lot different than a year ago. Some might grewn a beard, some might cut their hair, some might newly wear hijab. Some might have married to someone you don't know,some might have become a vegetarian,some might lost weight. Or they probably became more mature, independent, wiser...

But then I realize, I do not have to afraid in the first place. The friendship we've grown together all these years can not be faded by thousand miles you traveled, those many days you spent apart. Not being able to look directly at their face, hear their voices or just be in their general presence, makes you travel thousand miles to meet them for a short time,that seemingly doesn't really make any sense. But after you meet them, you see them on the other side waiting for you wearing the same smile all these past years, everything kinda falls into place. And all the problems you thought you had, slowly disappear.