Besides the Obvious

We’ll meet again for sure! Or just simply not… and it’s fine too! A last good-bye.

I’m already after many last meetings, last coffees, farewell parties, last hugs… repeating the same last conversation for hundred times…

And then the last hug and the last sentence: ‘All the very best & good luck in your new life’, and this sentence is already said out in a completely different tone… as it might happen that we’ll never see each other again in this life. Not because we don’t want, or we don’t like each other, not because we are pretending, not like all the things we said were fake. They are indeed real at that very moment, but life is life. We all get busy with other things, with other people and our priorities are changing with time.

When I left behind Hungary, it was different, as it’s my home country, from time to time I was visiting, no matter what. We kept the same promises, and it was definitely easier to maintain friendships in the beginning, as these were old friendships, some of my from childhood, even from primary school, some from later, but all of them were real friendships and I was lucky enough to say that I had a wide group of friends.

During the first years, whenever I went back to Hungary I scheduled every single minute of my stay there. 1 day for family, 1 day for one group of friends, and other night for other friends talking through the whole night, another afternoon for this and that. 2–3 hours of sleeping, I just wanted to bring the maximum out of the short visits and not to miss out anything or anyone. I just didn’t want to accept that I’m not updated with everything and everyone that has happened in Hungary since my last visit. I wanted to check all newly opened places, view all new exhibitions, review trends, watch Hungarian movies in the cinema, try the new bar, that restaurant, whatever. I wanted to do even more .vs my friends who were actually living in the country, and at the very same time I was always surprised, how they can’t find time for all of these things if they are living there every day? … Because it was not their interest, they had their own lives, they treated these things as granted, they could go anytime, and then they never went by themselves… as they could count on my visits, when we would go and discover all new things anyhow, because of me.

And I was so exhausted after each visit in Hungary, that finally when I left I needed to relax for a couple of days to relief and digest all the information.

But with time and x numbers of visits, I changed. Naturally, not like I wanted to change, or I planned it. I just learned to accept that whatever happens there, I’m simply not part of it. I can be informed and updated, I can be happy or sad about it, I can still care, share my opinion, but I will keep missing out many things just because I’m physically not there. It’s physically impossible. And I have another life in the meantime in a new country that keeps me enough busy and interested every day, so I don’t necessarily need even more inputs.

My priorities also changed with time. I just wanted to spend time with my family and really close friends, and since having limited time available I needed to make choices and decisions between friends. And obviously, it had an impact on many of my friendships. I always believed in balanced relationships, also in case of friendships. I can go and bring even the moon, many times, without being selfish, without asking for anything back, if I care. But it should be balanced, if I don’t see the effort from the other side, I slowly do less and less. And even less. And then just stop doing it.

I can count on my two hands how many of my Hungarian friends visited me in Poland during the 7 years. How many of them cared enough to take a look at how I live in another country. I don’t need any other feedback. It’s clear enough. So based on, I was also able to make my choices. Sounds sad? No, I would call it, as a natural selection, from both sides, as obviously, those friends visited me, whom I had the closest friendships with. And it also gave me the idea, that whenever I’m back in Hungary, whom to visit, and who is less priority. Of course, I stayed in touch with other friends too, who just simply never had the opportunity to visit me, but our friendship was strong enough to survive this. And with these years, even though the number of my friends reduced, but the bond with the remaining ones became stronger and stronger. As we indeed wanted to know about each other, we called each other, we texted, kept chatting, planned activities ahead, traveled together. Maybe we were not always there, or not physically available but we could absolutely count on each other.

And there is this other group of friends, with whom I’m not in touch anymore. Let’s be honest, I don’t really miss them… If I have missed them, I could have already called them many times during these years. But I didn’t, and they didn’t either. I’m updated about their lives only on social media, sometimes wishing Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to each other. Our lives just simply went into a different direction, and it’s fine with me as it is.

So, I think if now that I am based in Barcelona, it won’t have a really big impact on the status of my Hungarian friendships. For them, I will be still abroad. Doesn’t really matter, where. But let’s face it, Barcelona is definitely a more desired holiday destination then Warsaw 🙂

But how about these friendships from the last 7 years, from Warsaw? Regardless of all the nice memories, these friendships are different, developed as an adult. The roots are not that deep. And to Warsaw, I’m not planning to come back and visit that often as I’m doing with Hungary. Maybe for work, I need to come back once in a while, and maybe when I will be retired I would be happy to come back to look around… So, how about the group of expats, my Polish friends, colleagues, my Hungarian friends living in Warsaw? With whom I want to stay in touch later on? And for how long? Will we do the extra effort to maintain these friendships? Some of them I will really never see again in this life? That was it? Only time will tell 🙂

Thanks for reading! 🙏

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