Around a year ago, D and I took a trip together to New Orleans — our first time spending more than a day together. Though we met in the fall of 2021 (for a few hours), our friendship up until last year consisted of video calls and a single day he spent with me in the summer of 2022.
He and I often talk about how that trip was a turning point in our relationship. To spend even a few days together, especially sharing the experience of exploring a new city, allowed us to be with each other in a way we hadn’t before. Instead of catching up on life, we were living life together.
It reminds me of college and evokes a nostalgia that hasn’t quite gone away since I graduated. The easy connections. The seamless way you could blend school and life. You could hang out on a Tuesday at 2 PM or 2 AM. Share 20 minutes in the dining hall or between classes. Message in the group chat knowing there’d always be someone down to do something stupid.
All those little moments meant something in your relationships, even if you can’t remember them now. Little grains of sand piled up high into a sandcastle — one adulthood would eventually wash away.
After college, everyone goes their own way. Scattering to every corner of wherever to start a new life — one without you as a featured character. Sure you might catch up every once in a while, but that’s about it. You’re living in a sitcom where you jump on a call or hang out every few weeks or months — if even. Those are the lucky ones.
When you are together, you’re essentially interviewing one another on the holy trinity: work, dating, and family. Trying to cram everything “important” into an hour or two, then letting everything else slip through your fingers like grains of sand while you wait for the next episode to air.
But what if “everything else”, the mundane, was actually the good stuff?
In normalcy, spontaneity has the breathing room to emerge. Slowly unearthing something new about yourself or someone else. You plunge into a rabbit hole on some obscure topic or concept. Reveal an embarrassing teenage experience you thought was just you, but they share too. Allowing you to see each other just a bit more fully than you did before.
In many adult friendships, we stop discovering one another and get stuck in the past. Solely seeing each other for who we were, not who we are.
No wonder we feel stuck or disconnected. Or just bored.
It seems most adults chalk this up to “growing up.” Accepting that it has to, no, is destined to, be like this.
But what if it doesn’t?
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During my first couple of years of adulting and living in New York City, it really hit me how little I actually saw my friends. Even though we lived in the same city, we saw each other (if the effort was there) once every couple of weeks. Otherwise, it was once a month or beyond.
Now that I’m back in the city and reconnecting with friends, I face that same friction again. “Let’s get food later” doesn’t cut it anymore — you need to plan way in advance and coordinate Google Calendars. Spend upwards of 30 minutes commuting one way to meet each other halfway.
While living in Europe, I appreciated how life was built around connection. People stop by the park or cafe to sit with friends after work. Meet up for a midday drink or smoke. Grab a pre-dinner before dinner at home. The boundaries between your life and others are a lot more blurred. This creates some difficulties, but when it comes to relationships, is pretty valuable.
At the moment, I’m staying in a coliving community. Essentially, a bunch of people chose to set up shop in one apartment building and recreate the college dorm experience for adults. Your friend or partner is down the hall or up a flight of stairs. There’s a common space to congregate in. With so little friction, it’s not impossible to see your friends every day, if even for 20 or 30 minutes doing something super mundane.
Everything else no longer slips through your fingers.
My time in Europe and now are shaping how I view living in the future. While living alone was amazing and incredibly transformative (I’ll add necessary), I don’t see myself doing that again. After going through that cocooning period, I’ve got a pretty sweet relationship with myself. And the deeper I’m connected with myself, the deeper I want to be in connection with others — in community with others.
I want to be near my friends. Not same city, I mean same neighborhood. Same building. Across the street. Living together. Living life together.
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I think we get too fixated on the cities we end up in, rather than the communities we end up in. Does it really matter if you live in New York City and have access to Broadway and the MET and whatever else if you’re going alone all the time? There are plenty of studies affirming your fulfillment and satisfaction in life are derived from meaningful relationships — why not orient life around them?
Yes, some factors make this difficult. But even still, with some intention and commitment, you can absolutely create this kind of experience for yourself. Where I’m living now is proof. And until we experience something firsthand, we have a hard time believing it’s possible.
Where will I end up? I’m deep in this question at the moment. In all likelihood, it’s between San Francisco and New York. I have friends in New York but can’t say I have a community. And while there’s no guarantee I’ll find it either in San Francisco, there’s just an energy and aliveness of possibility that I’m pulled toward. To ignore this would be to resist Life itself.
Perhaps where we end up is less about where we feel most comfortable, but more about where we feel most alive.
Where is that for you?
My parents and I had an unexpected visitor. A 8-weeks-old black puppy that I call her Kiki. When I heard her background, I realized that I need to change the destiny of her so she has a second chance to live her life. I don’t know how, but for some reason, she laid down in front of our Buddhist altar for Budai and cried tears. Slept on the couch, and couldn’t fall asleep because she kept crying and had bad dreams, so I put on Chinese instrumental music for her to sleep peacefully throughout the night because she grew up with hearing gun violence at the countryside. Now I’ve finished my job successfully convincing a newly wed couple to give Kiki another chance to live her life the way she deserves.
Kiki reminded me of the life purpose I have always protected ever since I was a kid. “If Buddha lets me act as his right-hand of justice and the Truth in order to save another human’s being life from its foreseen dangers I already predicted 10 moves ago; then I am willing to exchange my karmic debt for the Chaotically Good Cause. Save all living beings on this earth because I do not wish the human race to be lost and in suffering.
I told myself that if Buddha allows me to take any opportunity to act as a savior and a soldier, then let me fight for him or her. I always knew I am destined to become a lawyer by heart, soul, and mind. But the men in our family ancestors sacrificed their lives on the lines of life and death to protect their wives and children to safety. That is why I understood why my parents are deeply hurting inside out and I will do anything to save their lives. “I don’t think any human being will be able to understand who I truly am because I do believe that the blue sky with the golden sun is reminding me there is still hope in this cruel world because a lot of people want me to die but I am still alive and breathing.
Louie reminds me a lot of Nga who grew up to be her own lawyer of sacrifical love and justice for all human kind. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XrjJbl7kRrI
More alive?
What does “alive” mean anyway?