Here’s $1mill but you can never leave Sydney

“Would you accept $1million on the condition that you could never leave Sydney? Even on holidays?” This was a hypothetical posed to the group at drinks last night, and came back to me in thought as I ended a very fine weekend in Sydney, crossing the harbour bridge in a train bound for the suburbs. That blue ocean sprayed with starry sunlight, a sight so magnificent even the most jaded of Sydney-siders look up from their novels, or newspapers, or general despondent nothing, to admire the view and sighing think, “how beautiful”. It’s such a dazzling, resplendent beauty you almost feel the city is consciously and shamefully flaunting itself.

Being back in Sydney inevitably causes me to reflect on a life lived divided into two cities, – and consider which of the two is more worthy. This last year in Beijing has been, in some respects, a bit of a failure. There I have resumed life as a student, an exchange student at that, living on campus. As you can guess, at 90% of the dinners I sat down in I have been the oldest person at the table. So, you could say that the last year has been like reliving my early 20s.

The problem is, at 26, it doesn’t feel so much like a nostalgic walk down memory lane, so much as a nauseating feeling that I haven’t quite moved on. All around me there are kids – great kids, but still, kids – doing what you do in your early 20s: solid drinking, clubs, one-night stands, obsessive crushes, self-combusting friendships, study, internships, part-time work, travel, non-stop adventures. Mostly things that I, too, have partaken in while in Beijing.

I’ve come back to Sydney and caught up with old friends, and found myself craving the components of their lives: careers, salaries, stable relationships, old friends, family, apartments, news, politics, exercise, cooking, brunches, movies, art exhibitions, gigs, nice things, direction, stability. This weekend was a peek into what my life could look like should I return, and I liked it.

Of course, many of these things I could have in Beijing. If I quit the student life, took up full-time work, and accordingly shook up my social habits. But there will always be one vital ingredient that Sydney will always have over every other city on this planet.

Old friends.

OK and family, citizenship and therefore participation in the political process – but let’s just focus on friendships today. One of my best friends has just made her first move to another city. And in writing about making new friends, she points out, her very full life in Sydney contained:

… the number and quality of friends that comes from spending twentysomething years of one’s life in the same city.

As someone who is now onto her fourth city of living (Sydney, London, Buenos Aires and now Beijing) I feel that while I’ve become better and better and making new friends, and quantity is no issue, it will almost always be impossible to ever replicate the quality of my Sydney friendships. And this is said with full respect to all the amazing people I’ve met in Beijing, there is one missing and impossible ingredient: time.

I’ve regularly said that no friendship can be considered true until tested with time. Time allows a friendship to go through all sorts of trials and tribulations: new boyfriends, new friends, family dramas, career jealousies, political divisions, religious awakenings, changing lifestyles and interests, deaths, sicknesses and births.

What’s amazed me is that I have a handful of truly great Sydney friends, one whom I’ve known for over 20 years, and the newest still a mature 6 years, whose friendships – though ebbed and waned in that time – remain now intact and very much awesome. And they are like this, partly because living in one city for most of one’s life gives you the opportunity to (subconsciously) ‘cull’ away the friendships that didn’t work from those that did, but also because the fact that they remained in tact through all those hardships only made them stronger.

Don’t believe me? Think about one of your best friends, who’s known you for ages. You don’t just love him or her because you think they’re great, they think you’re great, and life is a riot when you’re together (and it is.) You also love them because they know about your foibles, about your fucked up relationship with you parents, about your vanities, and insecurities, about your bad romances, and worst habits. And yet they still love you, as you do them. And they bring the best out of you. They bring the best friend out in you.

That kind of inside-and-outside, through-and-through trust and insight is irreplaceable. These friendships are like a battered old chair or wooden bench. It’s been through the wars, but the fact that it’s remained is a testament to its strength; prosaically dependable, comfortable, loving, magically all the right dimensions, a vital presence.

I want to stress one more time that I am so grateful for some of the amazing friendships I’ve made in Beijing. But by the very nature of the expat lives we lead in that city, where most people stay 6 months, 1 year, a few years at the most, these friendships will never be given the time ingredient that is so necessary for them to become vital. And once you accept that the revolving door of friendships inherent in expat life can never replace those of your home city, one must ask how important is this to you?

For me, the older I get, increasingly so.

(That said, I’d like to write a future post make the case for living overseas, at least once for a few years.)