This post was nearly called ‘Make Friends-Friends Move’ or even ‘The Nature of the Beast’ but at 1 am in the morning I decided on the title ‘Au Revoir Peng you’ which translated from French and Chinese into English is something like ‘so long friend’ right? At this stage of year in an international school it is all about endings, the joy of ending another year with report writing coupled with the sadness over saying goodbye to students, teachers and friends.
Now you have to realize this is a first for me. I LOVE MY SLEEP. I do not get up in the middle of the night to do anything let alone blog. BUT something just happened and I started writing this post in my sleep and I got thinking and thinking and thinking and bang! I just had to get up and get started.My vision is to have a super cute shot of Hannah and Syd and Mimi and Sojo on here within the next couple of days, (well hey, that is what this post is about isn’t it? I only have a couple of days, well, four to be exact to catch these little peng you’s on film) and my vision includes having them wearing matching clothes! Sick I know but I can’t help myself, I started thinking about Mimi and Sojo in their little turqoise spotties and then before you know it I also had Han and Syd in their pink or even their stripey H & M’s. We will see if I can pull off the photo, I have no control of that in the middle of the night but I can at least work on the post…
Sydney and Hannah…a special friendship.
So we are going out on a high with our friends the Munno’s (aka Jen, Tim and Sydney Munnerlyn. We have been getting friendlier by the day for the last three years, brought together by a couple of 4 year old girls, we have formed and sustained our own grown-up friendship that will be the one that carries us into the future. We fly to Melbourne on Friday for a summer/winter break and we return to Shanghai in August…the Munno’s fly to the States on Saturday and will start school again in August…but in Abu Dhabi!
It has caused us to think about friendship and transience and beginnings, endings and in betweens. It has made us happy at the thought of seeing them again under different circumstances and sad at the farewell to all that we know and the routineness of our time together here; the things we have come to expect and take for granted. Most of our friendship has been pre-Mimi and we think of those days as the golden days of parenting an only child. Golden only in that it was like having all the benefits of two children but without the extra responsibility, Sydney was the daughter we got to have over but never discipline, she brightened our days without ever darkening our mood. She and Hannah have clocked up many hours together on weekends and weeknights, on school buses and in school playgrounds, and even in Phuket and Koh Samui! Believe me, it hasn’t always been perfect, there have been tantrums, traumas and tears but mostly Sydney and Hannah being friends meant that Jen and Tim and Simon and I were able to claim back some of those pre-children days as we could trade off time on weekends and take turns looking after the two of them while we went out and about exploring Shanghai, spending time together knowing that they were happy and we could be guilt-free in our explorations.
But on top of their friendship, the bonus of a grown up friendship slowly developed which saw us booking flights in advance to Thailand and just hoping we would all still get on…and get on we did…for two trips; one to Koh Samui- a five night test run and later with more confidence-7 nights in Phuket.
So knowing we will see them again, but not knowing what is around the corner in the future, makes a melancholy soul like me reflect on the past a little and lament the loss of what was.
Izzy deep in thought…
the barefoot librarian 