Immigrants on the Move

I will preface the following story by saying I’m not a morning person. If you’ve seen that meme of the two chihuahuas at the car window, one bouncy, one zombie-like, I’m the latter every time. Despite this I got up at six am ton Friday, caked my makeup on so I didn’t scare the kids, walked the three and a half miles (5.6km) to the nearest train station and made my way to Birmingham international.

This wasn’t an opportunity to get on a plane and fly somewhere exotic, it was for the sake of getting a twenty minute coffee and catch up with a dear friend who was changing planes at BHX.

When you’ve moved many many times, you meet and make friends and equally move away and lose contact. Long distance can be hard as I covered in my blog post Sometimes Distance Doesn’t Make The Heart Grow Fonder. It takes both people keeping in touch, it takes effort to visit, it takes small acts of showing each other that your presence is missed when you’re not around.

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. Jane Austen.

When you meet someone who makes the same effort as you it’s special, it’s something to be treasured, and it’s totally worth an early start and a lengthy hike for a hug and a chance to see each other in the flesh.

I know we’re in an age of Zoom, FaceTime and easily accessible technology and it’s amazing how in contact we can be wherever we are in the world. But as a trailing spouse, your life is often 60% online coffee dates. This means the in-person catch ups mean so much, plus as a very tactile individual every hug and real life contact means the world to me.

So to many I might be a little crazy to travel for longer than I got with my friend, but for me it was worth every second and I’d do it for any of the special friendships I’ve had the luck to create across the world.