Issue #21: On Building a Community
In March, I wrote the Ebbs and Flows of Friendships article. In it, I touched on the challenges of maintaining adult relationships and the cycles of peaks and troughs they...
In March, I wrote the Ebbs and Flows of Friendships article. In it, I touched on the challenges of maintaining adult relationships and the cycles of peaks and troughs they often go through as people navigate life’s choppy waters. Many people resonated with the article, judging by the number of comments and emails I received and the numerous follow-up conversations I had. Since then, I have strived to improve the relationships I care about. It involves a lot of deliberate effort - showing up, checking up, and lending a listening ear - and sometimes, I fall short, but I keep striving.
Ameh is one of those friends I value dearly. I met him in 2012 when I was taking a computing course in Lagos. We bonded over our shared love for Java (the programming language, not the island in Indonesia), and we even tried to build a startup together in 2013. That failed, but our friendship grew stronger. His mom accepted me and treated me like her own son, and I think she even had a secret mission to fatten me up, judging by the food portions she used to serve me. I was compelled to finish the meals, of course. I’d drive to Lagos on Monday mornings, stay at Ameh’s house in Ajao Estate, and leave for Abeokuta on Friday evenings. I did that for close to two years until I left for England for Uni in September 2014. Ameh left shortly after me, opting to study in the United Arab Emirates. We kept in touch despite the distance.
After our graduation in 2015, Ameh moved back to Nigeria and promptly got a job as a Software Developer. I stayed in England. Still, our friendship didn’t wane. Every year, I’d go back to Nigeria for holidays and stay at Ameh’s house. He was always happy to receive me. Our friendship remained steadfast until the whirlwind of the pandemic swept across the world, shaking and testing relationships, leaving everyone stunned and disoriented. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Ameh and I stopped keeping in touch as much from that period. He’d call, and I wouldn’t answer. I learnt about his marriage months after it happened. For years, I had spoken to him about moving to England. He finally did during the pandemic, and I didn’t find out until months after. I was heartbroken by the state of my friendship with Ameh, so during my birthday contemplations, I made the following resolution: to do better and invest even more time in nurturing my ailing relationships and dragging them out of the valley of apathy where relationships wane and eventually die.
I promptly followed my resolution with action. I called Ameh, and we caught up and rolled back the years by reminding each other of the silly things we did together as young adults. We laughed a lot. Things didn’t feel forced, and that I was grateful for. He now lives with his family in one of those coastal towns in Essex, southeast England, so I booked a train ticket to see them. They added a new member to their family two months ago, and I didn’t find out until I called. Naturally, that stung. He apologised for not letting me know on time, said it’s been a whirlwind adjusting as a new father, and it wasn’t like I was very responsive with calls anyway. Made sense. Nonetheless, I looked forward to seeing him, his wife, and their new bundle of joy.
I visited them on Sunday, and it was a delight. After we had laughed until our rib cages hurt, Ameh and I spoke, matter-of-factly, about what had caused us to drift apart. We talked about the impact the pandemic had on many relationships. We hypothesised that one of the reasons immigrants like myself struggled with our friendships during the pandemic was that it exacerbated the pain that comes with being so far away from our friends. It was hard enough that migration due to the pursuit of better futures has flung friends far apart. We miss our friends, miss the activities and fun we used to have in person. But we coped. Soldiered on. Pre-pandemic, friends travelled around the world to see other, spent time together, shared love and laughter. For those that didn’t regularly travel to meet, the knowledge that one could get on a flight if one wanted to provided some comfort. The pandemic precluded flights and snuffed out whatever solace we had. We felt trapped. We felt like tropical animals caged in temperate zoos. We suffered, so, little wonder, then, why our friendships also suffered greatly.
Ameh and I are solution-oriented people, so we discussed a few solutions for easing the ache of being so far apart from our friends. Of course, not all of our friends will be able to live in the same country with us, but for those of us that do, a solution could be to create a physical community, decide on an area where we could all buy properties (or even rent for those not yet ready to buy), and all move there. That way, we get all the benefits of communal living. I am now fully committed to this, and I have started taking deliberate steps to making it happen. I don’t know how long it will take, but the journey of a thousand steps begins with a step, they say.
The social preview image that is shown when this post is shared is by Helena Lopes on Unsplash.