Worldly Chatter

As some of my readers are aware, I met my Dutchie on-line. Goodness, it has actually been nearly seven years since we started speaking and six since the first time we met. It took five years to get my American bottom over on this side of the pond and during that time the internet and phone companies became tools for staying in touch. Once I moved here I was so pleased that hours wouldn’t be needed to write emails and IM’s, the phone bill wouldn’t be so painful to see at the end of the month. Then I did a little rethinking.
I cannot isolate myself from friends and family just because we are an ocean away. It seems that once you start using the internet for communication it simply never stops! I call my mother about once a week, my father almost the same. Then the friends I want to stay in touch with. How did I ever think that the internet wouldn’t be an important part of my existence any more I just do not know? Delusions I suppose. I still look at the phone bill every month and see how much damage I did that month it some attempt to make the Atlantic Ocean’s vast space not so when keeping in touch with the family. I still sit here on the computer and rummage through emails and IM’s. I can remember a time when I wanted no part of computers, now I don’t know what I would do without it!
It has been some time since I first crossed the ocean in order to find Dutchie and the life I wanted and I still get surprised at the power of the internet. I am now in my twenties and I came across a face I hadn’t seen since I was thirteen years old! A dear friend I got in so much trouble with and truly loved having in my life. This was a time when computers and Yahoo didn’t exist in our world, just our rooms and as much of the outside world as our parents would let us see.
It has been a little over ten years since we lost touch for circumstances out of our hands, being children. And just like that, with a click of a mouse, I had seen my long lost friend and the emails started! MySpace is the place to find all those old high school buddies now a days and I fell right into the flow that MySpace gives us when attempting to keep in touch, people across town or a continent away.
Since we only found each other this week there is much to share! I honestly never thought I would find her again. It had been too long I reasoned, I was on the wrong side of the pond. Who would have foreseen this? Even though I live in Europe I am not lost to those I love and can even find old familiar faces now and again. So I pay homage to the communication age! I am corny I know but ever so grateful!

long distance relationships, MySpace, friends, long lost friends, expats, living abroad, expat life