unexpected friendship

If you asked me to define a person  who would make a 'good' expatriate (if there is such a thing) my words would probably sound something like:  "the opposite of my husband and me".

While we are are both open to change and not adverse to taking risks, we both tend towards the introverted and reserved side of the spectrum.  Our thoughts lean more towards the quality of our friendships rather than the quantity of our friendships.  Not exactly the traits of people that will have an easy time of 'putting themselves out there' in foreign countries and making the first move to develop a friendship.  

Knowing that, I fully expected to move back to the United States with the same friends that we had had when we left Minnesota.  And perhaps we'd add to the list in the Netherlands (the only place we thought we'd live) because it would have clearly been hard to go three years just talking to each other.  Plus, now in Scotland, just about seven months before we leave this country, I find myself growing closer to women who come October will likely never share a continent with me again. 

Sigh.  But that's not the point of my writing today.

What I didn't expect to happen over the last three years was to create and foster friendships with people who are there.

In the United States.

While I'm over here in another part of the world.

.....

We sat around a table at Caribou Coffee on a Sunday morning last November.  Some of us had been communicating daily for a large part of the last ten months and this was the first time we would meet face to face.  We were missing a few essential parts of our group, but they were there in spirit. It was a day for the my record books.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd be part of a group that has now stuck together for over a year on a tight knit, private group on Facebook. We offer each other support, advice and a few barbs (for competition's sake) here and there.

Its thanks to this group that I gained the love for exercise that I have in the last year.

And its thanks to a few of these ladies {perhaps a few that aren't even playing anymore} that I truly feel understood and cared for as I continue to try and figure out how to live a healthy lifestyle on an ongoing basis.

It was out of the blue that I found people that I can now call friends {and will be friends in person after I move} when I am thousands of miles away.

Seriously, a few of these people could have quite literally been sitting at a table across the aisle from me three years ago, and I would have never known.  And now, instead of being across the aisle, they'll be at my table.

I'm one lucky girl.

.....

Joining Kristen at Chasing Blue Skies for Out of the Blue again this week.  Take a quick second and find your way over there; it iss clear to me that you never know who you could find via the internet.