Prioritizing What’s Important
I just got off a Zoom call with 7 friends from my time as an ex-pat in Singapore. We have all stayed in touch over the years and a few different combinations of us have seen each other in the 10 years since we all lived there together. However, it took a pandemic to get us all on a call together in the span of a few days. When we came to Singapore none of us knew each other, but upon arriving far away from home we became a pseudo family for each other. The friends you make as an ex-pat are similar to the friends you make when you’re in college. You suddenly find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings and then you meet some people who were willing to be in that same situation that you’re in. Instant friends/family. Suddenly you’re celebrating holidays together and going on vacations together too. It’s a fast track to an intimate family relationship.
After an intense time together away from home, you all move on to new situations. Some go on to another ex-pat situation in another country and some return home. You try to stay in touch and sometimes you do manage a girls or guys weekend together in mutually convenient city. Sometimes two families get together over a school/summer holiday or some connect on college visits, but it is hard to get all of you to commit to a vacation together because it is understandably hard to coordinate everyone’s schedules. Insert a world wide pandemic and this group was able to arrange a zoom call in a matter of days, despite the fact that we are in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Virginia, and Connecticut.
We humans tend to prioritize family and work first. Friends usually come after family and work, and we all have multiple friend groups. We all know that geography makes it easier to choose those friends that are close by despite the desire to be with friends who live far away from us. That said, friends that you make during significant life experiences (like college or living with) have a huge impact on your life. The group of friends I made while living in Singapore made a huge impact on my life. I celebrated holidays with them. I traveled with them. I cried with them. I laughed with them. They were my family for three years. The arrival of a world wide pandemic impacted all of us and the need to reconnect suddenly rose to the top of our mutual priority lists.
Tonight we connected via Zoom. We called in from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Virginia. For an hour plus we updated each other on our kids and our lives and then we talked about how we were handling this world wide crisis. Some of us are not with our families. Some have children in the US going to college while we live overseas. Some of us have seniors in high school or college who suddenly don’t know if they will have graduation or if that job they have will still happen. Some of us have husbands living in one country starting a new job, while we stay elsewhere with children in school. Some of us will have to quarantine for 14 days or more when/if we travel home. Some of us will not travel home and ill not see our families. Some of us won’t see our family members even if we live close by because we can’t expose older family members to potential illness. Some of us have kids living on their own making their own decisions about how to handle the pandemic, and some of us have everyone suddenly living back together under the same roof. h other for one hour and reconnect. After the call one friend texted me and said “everyone is exactly the same” and another texted and said “we need to get another call on the calendar in two weeks.” Friendships are important. It doesn’t matter how often you “see” each other. We need to make the time to be connected to our friends. It shouldn’t take a pandemic to make us see that, but it’s one of the silver linings.
Despite the situation we all find ourselves in, when I got off this call I realized I was the happiest I have been in the last 5 days (post shelter in place). I wasn’t able to physically hug all these women (and the husbands and kids that occasionally appeared in the background over the time we were conversing) but I was able to look at all their faces. When the rubber hit the road, these friends were all able to find a time to talk and share and love on each other. We haven’t lived together in 10 years. We haven’t been able to coordinate a group trip in 10 years. Yet in the matter of about 4 days we were able to get on the “phone” and see each other- while in 8 widely different time zones- and talk like we’d seen each other yesterday.
No doubt this pandemic is terrible. No doubt there are many tragedies. Thus far my personal pain has been limited to shelter in place and physical separation from family and friends. The plus side has been the time spent connecting with family and friends, particularly those friends that are geographically scattered. The time spent on Zoom today with those friends from my time in Singapore filled my heart/soul. It reminded me of how challenging and rewarding that time was for my family, and how much those friendships meant to all of us. All of those people mean to so much to me an my family. They helped us grow into the people we are today.
We have another call scheduled for 2 weeks from today. We won’t wait for another pandemic to make us connect.
