Sunday, September 19, 2010

El día del amor y la amistad

Today was the Colombian national holiday of love and friendship. For me, it was a little bit of a sad day. Yes, I have made friends here, and many more than I thought I would have made in just a few weeks, but when I think of love and friendship, I think of people who are very far away, and I felt a little lonely because I couldn't celebrate this day with them. Today has also made me reflect on how lucky I've been in the realm of friendship. The two most recent friend-making times have been entering college and then studying abroad. Well, at Cornell I found some of my best friends just one room over or maybe a few steps further away. Then, in my abroad program, I found four lovely women who were not only wonderful to discover a new culture with, but who were also truly my people - people who I connected with beyond "let's explore Argentina together". And now, here I am, and here we all are, making friends all over again. Through my own experience and conversations with others, I've noticed that a lot of us are meeting a lot of new people and making many new friends, but we haven't really found our people, and that's been tough. I was thinking tonight, around a table of new friends, that maybe, in this chapter of my life, I don't need to find my people. Maybe what I need now is good company - friends to laugh with and share experiences with. And maybe I don't need more than that because I already have my people, and while we are thousands of miles apart, they'll always be there.

When I got home tonight, my friend Katherine had sent me an email that translated to something like this: Sally, I'm not sure if you know, but today is the day of love and friendship, so I hope you had a wonderful day. Although we've only known each other for a short time, I think you're a really sweet person, and I hope we become good friends in the future.

So I hope all of you had a wonderful day, too, and that you were able to share it with people you love. And don't worry if you haven't met more of your people yet. It may take awhile, but it'll happen. In the meantime, you already have your people, and I think we should all feel quite lucky about that.

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