It wasn't until I got to Haiti that I realised that making new friends in my early thirties is different from making new friends in my early twenties. A surprising amount of life experience has transpired during that time (good thing, I guess) and so it takes longer and longer to hammer out details of the past with new friends.
As part of my fellowship application process, I had to submit something visual to tell IDEO.org "more about myself." After much head-scratching and long discussions with friends, I decided on a treasure map that follows the path I took from childhood to public health. A few months after I submitted it, a couple of Haiti friends asked to see what I submitted. I showed them a few images so they could get the idea and before I knew it, they were pouring over the entire thing, muttering things like "I didn't know you studies marine biology."
I felt a little exposed - it's not as if I was learning about their hidden pasts as spelling bee champions or commercial pilots at the same time. It was also startling to realise that these two friends, who know me well enough to anticipate what I'm going to say (and make fun of me for it), were ignorant of so much of my foundation. How many hours have we whiled away together? Is it just that there's so much ground to cover that we haven't gotten to everything yet or do we just tend to talk more about the present? And what does this mean for making friends in my 40's and 50's?
Maybe I'll just put a moratorium on new friends after the age of 40 and work on the backlog of stories among my existing friends.
As part of my fellowship application process, I had to submit something visual to tell IDEO.org "more about myself." After much head-scratching and long discussions with friends, I decided on a treasure map that follows the path I took from childhood to public health. A few months after I submitted it, a couple of Haiti friends asked to see what I submitted. I showed them a few images so they could get the idea and before I knew it, they were pouring over the entire thing, muttering things like "I didn't know you studies marine biology."
I felt a little exposed - it's not as if I was learning about their hidden pasts as spelling bee champions or commercial pilots at the same time. It was also startling to realise that these two friends, who know me well enough to anticipate what I'm going to say (and make fun of me for it), were ignorant of so much of my foundation. How many hours have we whiled away together? Is it just that there's so much ground to cover that we haven't gotten to everything yet or do we just tend to talk more about the present? And what does this mean for making friends in my 40's and 50's?
Maybe I'll just put a moratorium on new friends after the age of 40 and work on the backlog of stories among my existing friends.
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