Almost everyone in our neighborhood in Oxford share the joys of spending time outdoors. I’ve got a friend down the block who has a habit of knocking at my door every Saturday early morning. Jeff had been doing this since we were still kids. He never runs out of any outdoor retreat ideas for the weekend.
Jeff was the one who taught me how to enjoy a lot of different things. When we were kids we would spend outside the fence of the airport field flying kites and watching all those huge planes come and go. Those weekend wanderings had sparked our passion in flying airplanes. We never made a career out of it but we had included it to our weekend experiences. It took us three months to attend to our aviation training to fly smaller plane. After we got our license, weekends were then spent flying and enjoying the scenic views and the beautiful sunset. For me, flying is an exhilarating and rewarding experience that’s quite addicting.
When Jeff and I got married and had kids, our weekly retreat in the sky became once a month activity or sometimes no flying happened in a month. We had to consider the financial aspects of paying the rent of flying a plane against household obligations. We recognized that married life has lots of things to sacrifice. But we never consider our married lives as reasons to compromise our happiness. It’s not only in recreational flying that we get to fulfill our interests. We enjoy the simple things of being two families getting together to eat, drink and laugh outside our home.
I had created good memories with Jeff and his family in our neighborhood. But things in the neighborhood will never be the same again because Jeff and his wife had decided to leave the country for good. He told us about it just the other day and we were in a sort of denial at first. But when I saw on the newspaper ads that Jeff’s house was in there among the multi family homes for sale, I myself had to battle with an irrational separation anxiety.
The days after we knew about their decision for migration, all of us in our family have waded through some emotional feelings. But we understood that the world is big and full of possibilities that Jeff’s family should explore. I just thought of cherishing the time that we’re still together in the neighborhood. We can still spend the remaining entire weekends doing the things we used to do. We can still rent a plane to see more of the picturesque landscapes in the city, we can still do outdoor camping together as families or simply share a special meal at each other’s home.
We had made meaningful bonding with this family for many good years. And I realize creating meaningful connections with people is one of the most important things in life. The interaction, the sharing of the same hobbies and the time spent with them are what make us fully alive.