Pillars

Earlier this year I learned the unhappy news that two of my oldest friends had split up.  It rocked my world to its foundations: not only was I deeply concerned for each of them, and for their young children; I felt a huge sense of dislocation and loss for myself.   These guys had got together in their first few weeks at university - shortly before I even met them - and, despite a few ructions and ruptures here and there in the early days, had essentially been a couple ever since.  It never seemed exactly an 'ideal' relationship: there was always a lot of 'creative tension' between them that could be uncomfortable for others to be around; but, despite this constant scratchiness, the relationship worked.  Other friends married and divorced, and remarried - sometimes within a few short years.  But these guys just went on and on.  They'd always been together (25 years - the whole of my adult life!).  And I thought they always would be.  They had been one of the few enduringly stable elements of my life. And now - though I hope I can continue to be friends with each of them separately - that bedrock of stability is shattered.  It is acutely disorienting.  (Yes, yes, unimaginably worse for them, of course.  Quite bad enough for me.)     And now.... I learn that my oldest friend in China is going to quit.  She's put in nearly twice the time that I have here (maybe there's something in that rule of 7-year cycles?), and it's fried her mind rather.  She needs a change of scene, some new challenges.  I have a feeling she'll be back in two or three years, but.... well, her decision to leave is rather abrupt, and very unsettling for me.  I had thought she would always be here.  And she has been another of my rocks - one of the few consistently reliable sources of sympathy and comfort, consolation and advice I've found out here.  I never suspected just how much I'd miss her until I discovered she was going to leave in a few weeks.