yearning for permanence

on playing catch-up, reunions, and experiencing life together

where are we going?

In August, I returned from a 6-month travel stint abroad comprising of my last semester of undergrad on exchange and some mini-travels. Ever since I’ve been back home, every interaction I’ve had with friends has been a reunion. Or namely, a catch-up session to talk about what I’ve been up to the last 6 months. “How was Korea?” “Are you working now or recruiting?” “Where are you staying/headed?”

Not that any of these questions are bad, nor am I innocent of asking similar questions myself. Plus I obviously want to know what my friends have been up to and they want to know the same about me.

But it makes me feel a bit sad. Same story spit out over and over, with varying levels of specificity depending on who I’m talking to. Then rinse and repeat the next time we meet. I started thinking about why I felt this way. After all, what’s so bad about reunions? I feel lucky to even have people I’d love to catch up with, and vice versa. I should be grateful to even have opportunities to meet the people I love again (which I am).

I am, I am. But at the same time, I realize it feels like I’ve been playing this game of “catchup” the last 4 years of my life.  For context, I’d go to school in Ontario for 8 months out of the year, flying back to my hometown of Vancouver during the summer months. When I’m home, I’m catching up people on my time in school. When I’m in school, I’m catching up people on my time at home.

Until when will my friendships stop feeling like catch-ups, and more like experiencing life together? To not need to catch people up, because they were right there with me.

Tweeted this a few months ago and still feeling the same way all the time lately.

Post-grad life is the saddening acceptance that you're no longer experiencing life with your closest friends. Every interaction is a catch-up sesh, spill the tea vibes, rather than doing life with them. We’re all on different paths overall, and it’s hard to fill in the context gaps when you weren’t physically there in the moment. It’s so hard to distill these experiences into words when to truly grasp it you had to be there. You had to feel it in all of its sensations, be able to manipulate it, and get tactile feedback. 

Is this adulting? Where every hangout is no longer exploring nooks and crannies of a city or late nights in the library, but rather conversations over a cup of coffee? Where we’re squeezing out as much as we can from a lunch break to fill each other in on the lore of our lives since the last time we saw each other (2,6,10 months ago?) The catch-ups I do have are lovely, but I just wish there could be time for more.

I realize that for some others, this might never be an issue that crosses their minds because they have a sense of permanence. They grew up in one location, and have been there for a long time. I am always returning home, whereas they have always been at home. Most aren’t concerned with how they fit into a city, the role they play in it, or where they should move next. Whereas I have no clue, physically, where I’m going to be. I often wonder what purpose each city serves me and what purpose I serve the city.

I yearn for a sense of permanence. For my life to not be packable into a 23kg suitcase. 

Something I've gotten pretty used to over the last 4 years is packing my life neatly into a 23kg luggage, or often just a carry-on. Back and forth, back and forth. But is life so easily packable like that? I’m afraid to commit to making a space feel like home when I'm just going to leave in 4 months anyways. Minimalism is aesthetically pleasing. But maximalism feels like home. There is something satisfying about being able to neatly pack all your life belongings in one suitcase, sure. But there is also something deeply saddening about it. Always on the move. Always on the run. Where is home? Is home a place? For me, I’ve been increasingly feeling like home is in people over places or things.

Because of my frequent travelling, I’ve developed some sense of community in multiple places. Home in Vancouver lie many of my high school friends, of which a few I am still close to. In Toronto, it’s largely university and internet friends. Homies here and there in the States. And after exchange, I now have various branches of friends planted everywhere around the world.

It’s abundant, yet lonely. It’s strange how though I know I’m loved, I still get these pangs of loneliness.

It’s having multiple timezones in your calendar and world clocks on your lockscreen. It’s wishing I could spend all 4 seasons with the same people: seeing cherry blossoms during spring, spending summer days on the beach, crunching leaves on an autumn morning, and watching holiday lights twinkle in the winter. 

In the absence of people who made you love a place, how can we still call it home? The people I love are everywhere and my home is in all of them.

So where do I go from here?

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closing

If you enjoyed this post, let me know! I welcome any comments and am fairly active on Twitter if you’d like to reach out. As well, here are some other related writings I resonated with while writing this piece:

• Kasra’s post about distant close friendships

• Vincent’s thread on transient relationships

To catch you up as the reader, here’s some of my life updates since the last post:

• finished exchange! travelled to japan, singapore, malaysia, brunei, australia after with my family :)

• i graduated and turned 22 in one weekend, and am back home in Vancouver freelancing full-time while i navigate post-grad feelings

• i help co-host community co-working sessions for passion projects every week at UBC, inspiring me to create more. we’re running a demo showcase on december 3rd if you’re in Vancouver (i’m demo-ing!) :)

• I’ve ruminated on some of the thoughts in this piece for the longest time. I recognize I’m lucky to even be able to consider something like this painful, and that there are people I leave behind when I move around so often too. It’s a constant struggle for me where I feel this guilt and gratitude simultaneously, yet yearn for more. But that all said, I’m pretty hopeful I may have found a solution. in my playful possibilities era .. stay tuned for more of what that might mean