In them ulus back home

I have been many places. I have met many people. I have said many goodbyes. I have heard so many we-must-keep-in-touch promises.

We would write the occasional letters. That rapidly deteriorated to once a year at Christmas-New Year. When international calls became more affordable, there were the occasional phone calls (always at an inconvenient time because of time difference). When email was all the rage - we happily wrote short notes with some frequency.

But, the reality is this: when one moved away physically, one gradually moves away emotionally. There is no longer the shared lives, only shared memories. Yet there is a lingering desire to hear from one another, to know that everyone is doing alright.

So I started to blog. I thought it would be an easy way to check on me occasionally and find out what I have been up to. No pressure to read emails and feel the need to reply.

But my original target reader group is a strange lot. They would not even keep an open mind about what blogs are all about. They never visited my blog. Reasons ranged from the blog not being personal enough, to they cannot access the site, to the husband/children monopolizing the comp.

But I treasure the friendship forged from all those years ago. So I give in to their irrational reluctance about blogs. About three times a year, I'd email them with recent pictures and give a brief run-down of what's happening here. And they'd write back to tell me what's happening back there, and how they miss me, and invariably ends the mail with "got to run now. Dinner is about ready/the husband just came home/I hear the doorbell."

I cannot help but wonder if I'd be ulu just like that had I stayed...