Sadness And Happiness

I received two touching and poignant emails from one of my closest friend who has relocated to the UK for almost 5 years now. It makes me feel so sad and my heart feels so heavy. She's gutted that she couldn't visit me earlier this year and I'm gutted that she couldn't either due to complications in her life. Either way, one of the happiest and monumental events of our lives so far occured days apart.

We've been friends for such a long time. She's known me since I was young, naive and innocent as school girls wondering what the future held in store for us. She knows all my foibles, my weaknesses and strengths. If it's possible to acutely miss friendship~ it's days like today when I read her emails and wish I could hug her and support her. I miss her and I wish I could be there for her during her difficult and challenging times. But we are oceans apart.

Internet and technology bridges the gaps and the oceans but due to the time differences and daily demands of life, it is hard to keep in touch in a meaningful way that can be treasured. Our correspondences sent to each other are raw, with neither of us holding back or putting on a polite facade. Growing up is hard.

You realise that life doesn't always follow your expectations and dreams. We find love, break other people's hearts and have our own hearts broken, and then the circle is complete~ find love again. The perfect road turns out to be paved with broken stones along the way. Just have to keep going.

We are both happy in our own way and our own lives. There are challenges on both sides of the ocean and I learn to value friendship more every single year. The ones that don't stab you in the back, that don't use you, that don't revel in your misery and instead help to find solutions to your problems, the ones that don't lie to you but instead are honest. Over these years, I've had all of those type of friends. The good ones, the great ones and the bad ones.

I am also thinking of another friend too, in her difficult time right now. If I thought last year was a very tough year for me emotionally, this year has been a very tough year for some of my friends. Things we never thought we'd be vulnerable to when we were younger. Back then, we broke hearts, got our hearts broken and that was traumatic but that is nothing compared to the life events that we now face. No doubt, years into the future if we all live to old age, we'll be looking back and thinking that what we face now is nothing compared to what we face then.