Today, I booked my flight to Europe for December.
This is in fulfilment of a promise. See, last year I promised to spend Christmas in Porto - with Angela and her beautiful family. I did not make it. So I told myself I should do it this year.
I was listening to a Spotify playlist. The one I used to play a lot back in the UK. I’ve always listened to this one, but now each song hits me with waves and waves of nostalgia.
There’s thing one particular song called Hero, and it has always reminded me of Brent. I’ve heard this song a thousand times but this time around, it left a certain thought. It made me wonder whether I would even see Brent again.
I am suddenly reminded of all the friends I’ve made throughout my life. Some of them I haven’t seen for ten years now. Some others, I am not sure if I will ever see again. I thought of my Indonesian friend, Nara, and the first time I met her in 2012. How I promised that I’ll see her again. And I did back in 2017. It took five years. When we were about to part, I was certain that I would not see her in person again.
The first time I met Nara, the rain was falling softly outside the quaint cafe we were in. The second time we met, we travelled to four Indonesian cities, climbed a mountain, took a trip to an island, fought during a motorcycle ride, and drank soda can after soda can under a hazy Balinese evening sky.
Nara went to Australia in 2017, and I found myself in the UK the same year.
I haven’t seen Nara in person after that, but I always see her... on Instagram. And somehow it never felt as if we actually separated.
Somewhere in the future, I will meet Nara for the third time. We will be older, laugh lines clearer on our faces. I’ll probably have a grey hair or two. And we’ll share stories of the world that we have seen. It would probably be in a coffee shop or at a train station. It doesn’t matter. We’ll be happy.
I think about my friendship with Nara as a benchmark.
Before then, I did not like meeting new people and befriending them because I never fared well with separation. I thought that it is so much better not to make memories than to make some, relive them, and feel a strong sense of nostalgia each time. But I found out that nostalgia is only potent up to five years. After that, it turns into a happy memory that you’ll look back on.
Now, I tell myself I will actively work on seeing my friends. May it be in person or not. A lonely person is a person who clings to the misery of the past and does nothing to live happily in the moment.
I will not be that person.
So yes, I will meet Brent again. Maybe in New York, maybe in Hong Kong. Maybe wherever it is that he decides to settle down. Maybe we’ll even meet accidentally. I will meet Annkatrin and Vico and Natalia and Mafe, and all the beautiful people I’ve met in the “ugly” city of Bradford. There are far too many to list, but I will do my best to meet them all again. It may be a bit too late, but I would love to see the friends I’ve made in my eleven months in Indonesia and the wonderful folks I met in Myanmar. I will see May Su and Margaret again. And maybe Miss Cherry too!
I definitely need to meet Kinsi, catch up with Ariel, and stay at Garnis unni’s house again. And perhaps it’s about time I met the Sages, Intan and Ray.
This year, I will see Kimmy and Dani again. And I will be spending Christmas with Ângela and Brishan.
I still have to visit my favourite people in Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Greece, Japan... or maybe we can meet at some point in this tiny earth and have a cup of coffee. Or tea.
Whichever part of the world you’re in, it would be nice to look forward to a tomorrow where we will meet again. After all, the world is not too large. If at one point in my life I found you without me intending it, then surely we can make a way to find each other again.
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