New Friendships, Old Friends

One of the highlights of last year’s holiday in Korea was meeting up with a guy named Kyung-hoo. We were classmates and good friends my junior year of academy. I hadn’t seen him since that year. We talked a lot about old times (catching him up on what people from high school I still new of) and our current lives. He told me he worked for an NGO and promised that at some point he’d visit us in the US this year. When I came back, I was sure to tell my old friend Al[ex].

I met Al first, and started hanging out in his dorm room where he, his roommate also named Alex, and Kyung stayed up until the wee hours of the morning hatching nefarious plans. The room of the two Alexes had a steady flow of colorful characters of whom I became a regular member. When Kyung left our academy we quickly lost touch with him and only our memories kept him a part of our lives (even until very recently—Al asked me to see if I could find Kyung-hoo when we moved to Korea in 2004). Naturally, he was ecstatic to hear the news, as Al and Kyung were best buds that were nearly inseparable.

A few weeks ago I had a “Coming to America” -themed birthday party. When I announced the event on Facebook, Kyung-hoo chimed in that he might be able to attend if we postponed a bit; he was working in Haiti and wanted to drop in and visit us on his way back to Korea. The party went on as planned, but we set up plans for him to come stay with us for a bit.

Well things got complicated and U.S. customs had their way with him and he missed his flight—ending up in Pittsburgh yesterday morning with little more than 24 hours before his flight to Seoul. He called me before catching a Greyhound to D.C., And I immediately texted Al, who also works in the D.C. area.

Several hours later, two best friends who hadn’t seen each other in roughly 15 years were back together:

Of course there was a lot of getting up to speed involved, but soon enough things were starting to click. What really made it gel was when Alex showed up and completed the team:

At this point Fru headed back to the house and the four of us roamed the streets of Bethesda like we had never been apart. We talked business, politics, religion, morality, girls, drugs, cars, plans, dreams and so many other things that it was no surprise we ended at my apartment around one in the morning. To be sure everything was covered, Al, Kyung and I then pulled out two yearbooks and scanned every page for stories, memories and updates. Finally after two we all passed out.

After breakfast, I dropped Kyung-hoo off at the airport. He’s going to South Korea for two weeks—to tell his family that he’s accepted an assignment in Haiti for the next three years and to train his replacement. Then it’s back to Port-au-Prince, where he’ll build the house he’ll live in. He says he’d be back to visit us every chance he gets.

When I got back home this afternoon, there was a pang in my heart similar to one felt last October; the feeling that something valuable I had lost had returned—only to be lost again. In october it was the feeling of home found with the people and places in Korea; this time it was my first successes with camaraderie. Both propel me forward with renewed intentions to do better at connecting with the past and incentive to look to a bright future.