'third culture kid': what to do with change (not the money kind)

I remember the last time I fought change. I fought it with everything in me. I was eleven years old. Our family was moving from a small town in Turkey on the border of Bulgaria to a city on the coast of the Aegean Sea. We were moving for lots of reasons. My sister and I didn't care about any of them. We had friends we loved in our little town. We knew where all the good ice cream places were. We would swim in the river in the summer and pick plums from the trees behind our apartment building. We would play soccer in the dusty streets with the Turkish boys and our few girlfriends brave enough to follow our lead. This town was where we learned to be Turkish. Learned to fit in despite the little blonde Americans we were. The day one of my friends told me she sometimes forgot I was American was a day I'll never forget. She'd done what I was always hoping she would. We didn't want to be different. And we didn't want change.

And then, out of nowhere, we were moving. There was nothing we could do about it. Every crack in the grey, cement apartments, every part of the rusted playground, every face we knew there became more dear than we could have imagined. We were leaving it all. Within a matter of weeks Edirne was just an aching memory. We cried so many tears together that hot summer. We hundreds of letters to our friends with rose petals and kiss marks on the envelopes. Looking back at those letters they look more like love letters than letters between friends. But there is nothing that tugs at the heart like loss. And a kind of romantic image rises up from the ashes of a lost town, a lost friend. And a love grows that isn't far from the tenderness of romance and the rage of patriotism. We were eleven and ten. But we knew something.

Since then I haven't fought change. We were defeated by it that summer. Since then I sat back quietly and let my life be defined by it. And I learned to ignore it as best as I could. Pretend it didn't exist. I've left so many places, so many people. They disappear into my past and when I see them now and then I pretend nothing has changed- because I have to. Because change is hard on souls and because I'd rather not admit all that space and time and life that's built a chasm in between us...and I'd rather not do the work of bridging it all. There's isn't time to anyway. The visit ends quickly and we slip back into our lives as if we'd never been friends.

My 'old friends' have never been current friends. What I mean is, apart from my family, the people I've known since I was little are scattered all over the map. No continuity, no responsibility to each other. I began to think of change as an all-encompassing-thing. When I move places, I change friends. And the old ones are filed away in a place dear...but not too near my heart. Otherwise things would hurt too much. That ache would come back.

And so when I got married I went through the drill. I began to file away the old memories, the old faces. A few of them moved to different states and that made it easier to believe that we now had separate lives...that we could detach our hearts from each other and not think too much about the loss. It's like a kind of death. You can think I'm being dramatic if you like. But I believe this with all of my heart. Those who have lived around the world and been far away from those they love know:

change is a kind of death.

And to survive you have to keep track of all the different worlds you've lived in and try to keep them all crammed into your heart somewhere---keep them as a part of your heart---but not too close--afraid of all the terrible fragments--and the ones that won't fit together--and the inability to make sense of it all.

So I got married and tried to build a new life from scratch like I was used to doing--God, it was hard. And I felt like I was getting no where. And I couldn't stop thinking about two friends from college who were still in the area. Two dear friends--Lisa and Rachel. But I was going through the drill. I knew the rules. Nothing from the old world could enter into the new one. That's how it's always been. I felt there couldn't possibly be enough love, enough friendship in any of us to bridge the gaps, to build back towards each other after graduation and marriage and so much change. I felt a strange kind of disdain for their friendship--as if being old friends wasn't as valuable as being new friends. And so I betrayed the fact that I'd never had old friends.

This post is for you, Rachel Lyman and Lisa Cohen (recently married to her wonderful Kristofer Cohen). The two who wouldn't let me slip away. The two who stayed. Who weren't afraid to tell me the truth (that I was being a butt for trying to move on from our friendships). Who taught me it's possible to dance with change without letting it crush you.

My dear friend, Rachel--you are a beautiful, sweet, creative, EXTREMELY intelligent, gentle, compassionate (like Jesus-status compassionate), wild, free, wonder-filled and faithful woman. We have been through thick and thin. We've had times when we've seriously disliked each other...and times when things were awkward and times when things were wonderful. I am truly honored to call you 'friend'.

My dear friend, Lisa--you are a beautiful, lionhearted, tender, strategic, EXTREMELY intelligent, passionate, wise, intense, eloquent and faithful woman. I still remember the first time I met you and we had a two hour conversation and I was so overjoyed that you were going to be my floor partner. We've been mad and sad at each other and critical and encouraging. I will never forget the year I spent with you on the Hood. Your wedding reminded me what a ridiculously good planner you are. My jaw just dropped at the choreographed dance. 'Get it Lisaaa'. I am truly honored to call you 'friend'.

And so I learned that there are three things you can do with change. You can fight it. You can deny it. And you can dance with it. Thank you Lisa, thank you Rachel for teaching me how to dance.


what have you done with change? What friends have taught you how to dance?