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Tuesday 25 November 2014

After Ten Years

Having a BFF who is half the globe away and lives in a opposite different time zone and different continent is definitely a hard thing, but it's something that is possible to live with. Well, meet Q (I swear she doesn't like to be called by her initial, and would probably kill me if she finds out I'm calling her by that name here), my 10-year-long-distance best friend.

She lives in America and I'm here in Australia (surely, it used to be between America and Indonesia), with, um, 13 hours difference. Wait, is it 14 hours? Or even 15 hours? Nevermind, I have long stopped counting the time difference and just completely ignore it. All I know is my bedtime is when she's getting ready for work. Yes, the time difference is such a pain in the ass when it comes to one of us is in emergency situation and needs an immediate respond, but apparently the other one is asleep. Alright, I exaggerate it and by any means 'emergency situation' isn't something like me calling her from inside a jail, asking her to bail me out, or vice versa. Nontheless, despite the delay of reply due to time differences, we happen to manage the communication just fine.

Ten years of long-distance-friendship, I have by now only vague memory of how we met randomly and stayed in touch through chat messenger. Who would have thought that she'd stay in my life and be the only person I tell about the silliest thing about me that I'd never ever tell other people? I certainly wouldn't. But there she is, standing by me through my darkest moment. It's something that I'm grateful for.

Ten years of friendship, never once we meet. Sure, we have had video chat long before Skype. Now we skype each other once in a while. But physically seeing each other? Never, yet. Through the ten years, many talks about visiting each other, many plans were created. We were still too young by then (she's three years younger than me, even), we could only talking and imagining about the day that we finally can meet. Until this year, the chance of us seeing each other seems so far away.

Yup. She is coming to Melbourne by the end of December. After life brought me to Melbourne and she has landed a full-time job, the talks and plans are eventually becoming real. We have started talking about visiting each other and her desire to travel to Australia in the beginning of this year, in which later on became a serious talk about her coming to Melbourne. Yes, if you're coming it has to be now before I turn 30 and don't have enough energy to keep up with you and do crazy and wild stuff, I told her. We decided that she should come in December, not only it's when I have the longest school break but also because summer is the best time in Melbourne. A few weeks went by and we didn't talk about it for a while until one day I woke up to her email contained her ticket itinerary.

You know, it feels like a dream come true for both of us. In about four weeks she's going to be here and after a long await of ten years, four weeks seems like forever although time goes by real quick. We have been talking about the things that she wants to do while she's here. Even an hour ago I just checked her email, listing all the stuff she wants to try out. We might also fly to Sydney for 2 or 3 days, depends on our budget (mine especially). Not so surprisingly, been over a year here in Melbourne and I still think that there's nothing much to do in this city, except for sight-seeing, shopping or eating out. Maybe because I live here that I find nothing interesting much. Therefore, she's the one doing all the research of things-to-do in Melbourne, while I'll be the one taking her around.

Excited? Definitely! Anxious? Yes. (More to my part, of course.) Many questions are hanging in the air. What if we didn't get along? What if what she found here didn't meet her expectation? What if I didn't get better by the time she arrives? (God forbid, I'd be still a nervous wreck and ruin her vacation.) What if I didn't have enough budget for all of our plans? And so many 'what if's'. Her visit is going to be (only) three weeks. Yet, it seems not enough time to do all the things, to go around places, and most importantly not enough time to pay-off the ten years of not being able to meet for real. But we're gonna take what we have. And in regards to the 'what if's', I think that we should just be ourselves and enjoy the time we get to spend together because, honestly, it can be years away until we meet again.

Now we just wait until the day comes - the day where I'm going to pick her up at the airport. In around four weeks and we're going to meet for real, for the first time since I befriended her. We have waited for ten years, only a few more weeks to make this a lifetime moment to remember.

Until next post.

1 comment:

Rae said...

What's so funny?