It was my friend Erika who said it best. We’d played phone tag, or Skype/Facetime tag as expats tend to do. Here I was in Qatar, newly diagnosed and chemo ready – there she was in Amsterdam on a new expat posting. Both of us sailing unchartered waters.
She’d tried to call me when I was at the doctors, I’d tried to call her when she was on the school run. It had been going for weeks when I finally got the exasperated message.
“Babe, I feel like we’re a couple that hasn’t had sex in a really long time.”
I rang immediately.
For an hour we reconnected with the stuff that can’t be read between the lines of updates and emails. The recent holiday, the kids, the new house, new school. I explained the bits about breast cancer she hadn’t wanted to ask through a keyboard. Why I hadn’t had a mastectomy, G’s initial reaction, what those first few weeks had looked like.
She cried while I bit my lip. And I looked into the screen thinking the thoughts of a thousand expats before me how did I get so lucky to meet you, how can life be so completely unfair that I now how to live it without you.
Chemo this week has been a surprise. It’s different this time, different things on different days. There’s an underlaying ache. I’m short tempered, my patience is thin. I internally praise myself for sitting through things I wouldn’t normally notice like clarinet practice (held centimetres from my head) a long winded story about, well, I’m not exactly sure. I’d recently had enough and knew I had to call in the big guns. I rang my sister. I shuffled my way outside to the couch, looked up to the sunshine and called her with the sole purpose of venting.
After she’d agreed, giggled, and made a couple of jokes she said “I don’t know what else to say, it’s just how it is, I don’t know what to say because it’s not going to change.”
“I know, that’s why I called you. I just wanted to vent, complain, tell someone. You’ve done exactly what you were meant to do.”
“Be selfish – if anyone has the right to be selfish right now it’s you. You’ve got so much shit on – you look after yourself. You do whatever you want – you’re allowed to.” I knew exactly what her face would look like, the defiance to match the voice. I’d seen it on the netball court, talking to my parents, at work. I instantly felt better.
“I’ll take a photo of what it looks like here in my backyard” The world had kept turning. I was on to the beauty of the bougainvillea, how much I loved my blue windows from the souq.
These are the calls that save us. We need to make them.
Whether it’s your sister, your friend from that first expat location, or the person you’re about to lose. Get on the phone. Indulge in the mundane. Giggle at the ridiculous and cry about the loneliness.
Take a photo of your backyard, share it with a friend. Explain where you’re at, how you feel, what it looks like.
Look after yourself. Pick up the phone now.
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That’s a strange coincidence because in a FB conversation I had with a friend in the UK this week she told me to keep on sending photos from SA – so I sent her a picture of my back garden (complete with pool – I wasn’t trying to make her jealous, honest!)! I know what you mean though, it is so important to keep up those connections. And it’s all too easy to lose them when you are far away from everyone. I find the hardest are the non-expats back home who don’t really “get” you anymore – some are great (eg the friends who tell me to keep posting the pics!) but with others I fear I am just alienating them further when I talk about our new life here. It’s a difficult balance.
I reckon a true friend will always want to see you happy and doing well. I love people’s holiday snaps, hell I even love their business trip pics!! If someone is getting jealous over your new life – maybe weren’t the best friend in the first place?
It’s hard to tell isn’t it. Some are like yeah more pics more pics! Others are just….silent. I try and balance out the photos of elephants and whales with boring updates on tantrums and annoying plumbers but I am not sure people remember those ones!
I was deep in the mire this time last week, but for once forced myself to pick up the phone every single day. To connect with someone. Lo and behold, I’ve resurfaced. Forcing yourself to reach out is such a powerful tonic.
I forget all the time how much better it makes me feel. It’s kind of like date night when you and your partner look at each and say “why don’t we do this more often?”
mmmm, date night. Must arrange one of those soon!
I picked up the phone yesterday and had a great catch up with my DIL- mother of the 4 little grandkids I miss so much. I hesitate to call her though because she’s a breastfeeding mum and I dont want to intrude but I made the call at the right time yesterday and it felt so good chatting about what little ones are up to and what presents to get the kids for Christmas. The thing I am missing most in my “not-expat but moving away from the city and family” is conversations. Ones with women. I am glad you get to chat when you can. You are in my thoughts a lot. Take care, always D xx