And So The World Goes 'Round

Friendship, like most things, is a relative concept once you cross cultural boundaries. Not to say that friendship isn’t valued throughout the world, but rather to notice that it is expressed differently in different places.

In Spain, it’s not uncommon to live your life in the city in which you were born. The Spanish grow up in a place, surrounded by family; they go to college in the same place (provided it’s a big enough town), they may go abroad, but they’ll probably end up back in Spain, close to family and friends. Because really, why would anyone want to leave? The societal and familial benefits of this aside, it also has an interesting effect on friendship. It’s not uncommon for a Spanish woman in her thirties to have friends she’s known since high school.

In the United States, by contrast, these ties don’t seem to exist at the same magnitude. Americans travel back and forth across the country, leaving family and childhood friends behind, usually at the behest of their careers. It’s hard to keep friendships up with this jet-setting mentality, and so over the years many seem to fall, peaceably, by the wayside.

That’s why I was so happy the other day, to find myself on Skype with one of my best friends, an amazing young woman I’ve known since pre-school. We shared the events of our lives as she sat sipping her morning tea in Carmel Valley, California, and I listened to car horns fill the darkness outside my bedroom window in Madrid, Spain. We’re far apart, and I miss the days that I could meet her, real time and in person, for a cup of coffee. But still I’m not about to let all those years fall by the wayside, because no one knows me better.

And after our conversation, as I stepped out into the city, off to my Thursday night, I felt unbelievably lucky, and even a little Spanish.