The Bittersweetness of an International Friendship
In 2008 I was in my late 20s when my family (a husband and 18-month-old daughter) moved from Australia to the small Gulf island of Bahrain for work opportunities.
In Australia, my husband and I were ensconced in a comfortable life with more extended family than we had fingers and toes and a set of friends we had known since childhood. Landing in Bahrain we knew no-one. To go from a fully constructed life to one which lacked even basic scaffolding felt lonely and daunting. When we shifted into our compound of six houses, we were relieved to meet a few friendly faces who became our support network in those early years.
One of the neighbours we connected with was a family from the Netherlands. Their lives mirrored our own as they too had recently relocated with a toddler in tow, exactly the same age as ours.
It wasn’t long before their little blonde-haired boy and our cherub with her mop of dark curls became each other’s little companions, jointly navigating all those tricky toddlerhood lessons: the art of sharing toys, playing pretend and having plenty of playtime tussles in-between. When it came to choosing nursery schools we ended up opting for the same one—occasionally carpooling to help one another out through various life emergencies and a pregnancy or two. We adapted to living in a new country together, and our level of comfort was built up very quickly over the two years we were neighbours.
Sadly, by the time our children were three and a half, our Dutch friends were ready to move onto their next international adventure in Kenya.
Our children played together until their very last day in the compound. Whilst our four-year-olds were oblivious or unable to process what moving countries actually meant, us parents were a little emotional as we said our goodbyes, knowing that our day-to-day connection would be lost from this moment on.
Initially, there were Skype calls and emails (this was 2010) but as they settled into their new routine and we adjusted to ours, our friendship became a distant but cherished chapter in our expatriate adventure. If you ask my teenage daughter about those childhood adventures now, she has no recollection of her first best friend but enjoys the many anecdotes and photos we have preserved.
In 2018 we had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam and catch up with our friends who by then had returned to their home country. When they arrived at our hotel, my ex-neighbour and I embraced warmly. She had brought along her two younger children but her older son, the one who had been our daughter’s playmate, had a commitment that day which he was unable to break. His absence was a stark reminder of the reduced role we now played as our lives had diverged. As we walked and talked, dodging bicycles around Vondelpark, my friend and I caught up and reminisced about that moment in time when our lives had overlapped.
Whilst there was a sense of mutual affection, the flow and ease of previous years was missing; we had less in common now and after a full day together, I was unsure of how to fill the space. I sensed that my friend felt the same way.
Our close and enthusiastic bond had transformed into a gentle level of warmth and mutual respect. Later on, as we said our goodbyes, I wondered if we would ever meet again. There could be a future cameo if we chose to make the effort to seek one another out in our different corners of the world… but realistically, all our future probably held was the odd comment or reaction to a social media post once or twice a year. Perhaps that’s what becomes of all those international friendships that slip away because of geographical distance, different time zones and the formation of new support networks. They float away and find a home right next door to that place where lost friendships go.