29 years and counting

Well another birthday come and gone. This one celebrated on a mountaintop in east India. It's true what they say, that time does seem to go by faster and faster. It hardly seems 12 months ago that Steph and Rach threw me a rockin' surprise in Baltimore.

It was great receiving birthday greetings from lots of folks that I haven't talked to in a while. But reading the notes, I realized that most of my friends don't realize the length of commitment that I have made to this job (min 2 years), or that I am actually living in Thailand, rather than just traveling.

I know its hard to keep track of everyone's plans when friends scatter to the wind, and I don't expect everyone to keep up with my latest address, but I can't help that I feel a little bit alone when so many of my friends don't realize that I'm still living on the other side of the globe.

It's something that my closest group of friends has long dealt with - the difficulty maintaining closeness when physical proximity is not possible. The casual interactions, the frequent check ins, and sharing of daily joys and trials just doesn't happen (as much) when many miles (or continents) separate you. For many years already we have faced separations, and have found ways to stay close.

There are some people that I share a bond with that I know distance can't shake. And I know that I'm lucky to count such a strength of bond with such a number of people. Friends whom I could reunite with after any length of separation without any weakening of connection. And for that, I am immensely grateful, as I am for the efforts that a few of my friends make to stay in touch.

But when I am here, and trying to live and work and create a balanced life in my current reality, it does emphasize to me my aloneness, when trying to create something stable here, that most of the people in my life see my being here as just another passing wind of change, and not something concrete, or stable, or worth incorporating into our relationship.

I realize I'm asking for it all, to be here, and still have relationships there, that I should check my greed, and make prioritizations, which I ultimately do, but this momentary reflection is just my emotional response to the difficulty of that balance.

So thank you for your birthday greetings. I'm very very grateful to be remembered by so many people. I will try to focus on that gratitude rather than the weight of the choices that I have made that have placed me so far from them.