“You have five years, starting…NOW!” I said to Vedat, starting the (nonexistent) stopwatch on my wrist.
I was explaining to my new little brother how my life tends to run in very distinct intervals of five years, with everything changing at the end of that time: friends, hobbies, interests, hangouts. It’s not as if I actively walk away, but somehow, quite organically, that’s how it works out. Consistently.
People move away, change jobs, or any number of things occur which make logistics in this already difficult city even more difficult.
One of my closest friends, Sebnem, has an organic shop on my block and she lives literally two buildings down from me. How often do I see her? Not nearly as often as I could/should/want to. She’s busy, or I’m busy. Life gets in the way.
You have to be quite determined and passionate about your social life and hobbies in Istanbul if you stand any chance of realizing them with any regularity. (One reason I’m having trouble getting back to a very regular training routine is because I’m not sure which sport I’m most passionate about yet. If I knew, I could enforce my spartan discipline…)
Vedat is from one of my new group of friends, part of the new era that just began for me in summer 2016. He laughs at me starting the ersatz stopwatch. Not because of my caprice, but because I am the first person he has met who shares that five year cycle. He’s the same.
For my cousin Hamit it is a consistent seven year cycle.
I never quizzed Hamit about it, but Vedat and I talk about how strange it is that the intervals are so sudden and so complete.
It’s not that I don’t commit. When I have a friendship, I am IN. I give my all. I form deep attachments and intimate friendships with alarming ease. The people who are right for me at that time come to me (or me to them) like magnets. And with as strong an attraction as magnets. Others have commented how uncanny my ability is to “fall in” with just the people I am looking for. It’s not uncanny. It’s what I choose to manifest (which is a HUGE topic, not for today).
But when these connections end, they end. As everything must. As easily as I grab hold and savor close friendships, I can
let go and move on without looking back. Make room for the next era.
You have to live in the now.
It’s a horrifying idea to those who aren’t the same. I suppose it seems very cold-hearted.
I don’t feel cold-hearted. It’s just the way I am hard-wired.
And not many of us are the same, I guess. Vedat is one. He’s so similar in temperament to me that I call him the male version of me. We tell people we’re siblings. Funny thing is, as close an affinity as we have developed with all the similarities we share, we both know all things have an expiration date.
Even with little bro, five years starts now.
That’s nothing to be sad about. Don’t worry, we’ll make the best of it.