As I look into your eyes, and you look into mine, I have no choice but to look away.
I feel embarrassed; I am ashamed of my own feelings, made worse by the knowledge that I am just your rebound.
I would love to dream that we have a future together, and dream that one day you will love me, but I know that I am just your rebound.
You have good intentions, you check me out, and really, you think that I'm quite nice; you don't even realize that I am just your rebound.
Conversations we have about our similarities and differences, establish our concrete foundations for friendship, and confirm that in no way am I like the one that went before me.
As we talk, I can see the thoughts going through your mind, and see that you are trying not to compare, but subconsciously you can't help but see the comparisons.
It has been a while now, and you are trying to move on, outwardly changing aspects of your life in an effort to appear to have progressed forward.
You successfully fool yourself and those acquaintances around you, but I can see you are in self destruct mode. It is a long, slow part of your life that I fear will only end one way. You are not alone and yet you are lonely. You are smiling and yet you are hurting inside.
I can make you smile for a time, you respond the way you should to everything I say and do. I think we could have fun together, we could have had a future together, but, sadly, I know I am just your rebound.
-Ntawira-
(written for Lilongwe Writers Circle - 16 September 2009)
This is to all my friends. (to those who can’t be bothered to read the whole entry, firstly, shame on you!! ;-) Secondly… please see the summary at the end!!)
Having ‘grown up’, in a place with a large, ever-changing social environment, many ex-pats coming and going, on one, two, three year, and every now and again, slightly longer contracts, I have had people arriving into and leaving from my life constantly.
At the age of six my “bestest friend, ever” left the country, when his parents’ contract finished and at the end of the school year, he said ‘bye’, jumped on a plane and jetted off to make new friends! At that point, I told my mother that I would never have another best friend; it probably broke her heart more than it did mine! And more than likely, after the first few weeks of the new term, I probably was on the way to making a new ‘bestest friend ever’. Not in any way replacing my old ‘bestest friend’, just adding another to my life.
The nature of the society that I was exposed to from such a young age has encouraged the way that I have made friends ever since. I learnt to interact with everyone, give every new person I meet a chance to become a new and great friend. You can meet someone only once, very briefly and connect immediately and become friends for life, other times, you build up a strong relationship up over years, neither way is right or wrong in my experience.
I am lucky, really lucky, as I have many, many best friends, people who I count as those that matter most to me ‘in the world’. I use the ‘’ in that sentence, as they are literally scattered across the globe. Their parents travels have landed them in one place or another, or many, but they have generally ‘stopped’ somewhere, usually for university studies, or have found themselves in a situation where they are in a place they can work themselves now.
More often than not, these friends have carried on where their parents left off, and are now also globe trotting. Some are happy exploring different cultures and countries, but in some I wonder if they will ever have a ‘home’. This is my home; not my house, but the place I feel comfortable and happy to live, work, and continue to grow. That is not to say that I might not also some day leave; there may be many reasons to make my ‘home’ somewhere else. I did leave, and I came back. For a time, I was the ‘traitor’ who left, and I can be accused of letting my friendships with people back here die off (those were in the pre-email days though, so feel like I could be forgiven somewhat, maybe!). I hope that I have not been the same with friends that I have left behind in my move back here.
It doesn’t matter how many friends have left over the years, it doesn’t matter that I am older now and know that most will remember the people they have left behind, and their times here so fondly and yearn to come back. It doesn’t matter that we can now communicate with people, near and far, via so many different forms of communication that they can still be a big part of your life, and you of theirs. It doesn’t matter whether you have been friends for ten years, or ten weeks, long term, as I have found that lasting friendships can be built over a cup of tea! Ultimately, the saying goodbye and the being left behind never gets any easier.
This is to all the friends that have left or moved on, to all the friends that I have lost touch with over the years, to those re-discovered and re-formed friendships, to those I keep in touch with regularly; and to those who I don’t, to all the friends that I have left behind, to all the friends yet to leave, and to the friendships that haven’t even been made yet. You have all made me who I am today, and I feel stronger for knowing you.
