The Difference

We’ve lived in Northern Virginia for 9 months now.  We have moved 4 times over the last 4 years, and by 9 months we have been so well settled that I felt fully at home where we lived.  In fact, by 10 months I was beginning to plan my next move, so 9 months may have been the most settled at each home so far.  Living abroad, a girl makes fast friends.  Much like summer camp, everyone needs friends right away and we bond quickly.  It’s a very friendly and exciting way to live, and builds my social confidence tremendously.  Abroad, I’m likely to begin a conversation with someone in line at the grocery store and invite them to my home by the time I’m checking out.  In the states, I’m not likely to give more than a passing smile to the person near me in line - possibly I’ll accept a compliment on my cute baby, but nothing more substantial.

I’ve enjoyed making so many friends abroad, but I rarely make friends that I expect to be in touch with more than a year later.  My Christmas card list remains static each year, because people add quickly, but people fall away quickly as well.  It’s the nature of a life where everyone leaves at a moment’s notice.

So here, I’ve been struck by the difference.  I’ve joined a Bible Study at my church.  I liked most of the ladies in the group when I first began, but I left a bit disappointed.  I didn’t feel like we were sharing much with each other.  I didn’t feel like I was getting to know them very well.  I wasn’t really making friends at the beginning.  Its only now, after being in the same group for 4 months, that I’m beginning to build relationships with some of the ladies.  And I feel this happening in other places, too.  Another mom at school, with whom I’ve chatted casually every day, we’ve begun to make plans for the weekend.  Relationships are slowly beginning to build.  And I’m realizing that this is how it works.  Friendships don’t usually happen so quickly - they build upon shared experience, upon shared history, upon shared interest, upon honestly enjoying each other’s company.  I love the erasure of these things abroad - I don’t choose my friends, and I don’t judge my friends harshly.  But I’m enjoying the natural of these things here.  I have things in common with my friends here, and I can sit and talk about any number of things with them.

It makes part of me wish that we could stay here long-term.  I was nervous about living on the East Coast - how could it be as friendly as the Midwest?  But Virginia takes it cues from the South, and I have found it to be a very warm and welcoming community.  I would enjoy the chance to build relationships with the women I’m getting to know.  I’m sad to realize that the moms at school will follow each others kids through the next few years of school, and that the ladies at church could remain in the same Bible Study through the next few cycles.

I love the lifestyle that we have chosen, and I love the joy of meeting new people and building those relationships regularly.  But this month, I’m hungering for more.  I’m hungering for those relationships that build slowly and over a much longer period of time, because they build to be so much taller.  And I’m thankful for the relationships I still have with friends from high school.  I love that these people have been my friends for over twenty years.  They know where I’ve been, what I’ve struggled with, how well I’ve succeeded, and they can spell the names of all of my kids.  I’ve got that history with them - but I only see them once a year.  I suppose the grass will always be greener somewhere else.