All through my graduation or till 2009/2010, I had my circle of friends with
whom I constantly engaged in conversations, enjoy arguing with them over
various topics, maybe because we were all at a similar
stage/priorities/mental/maturity levels and being together on a day-to-day
basis.
Thereafter, I was the only one who got placed in a MNC company in India
and my entire close circle left for their Masters in USA. Even though we all
were thousands of miles apart, I never felt things have changed in our phone
conversations during one on one but then in group calls I realized that they
all are at a different frequency – which is quite obvious given that all of
them were meeting each other or engaging in similar activities for their
studies or trips. But I never bothered about it since it was just over
phone/video calls.
The very first time I came to USA in Dec 2014, meeting a
lot of them in 2015 as well, I realized I am the odd person out. They have
found their own group of new friends, indulging in a
lot of common topics, arguments, teasing each other for their lives during
Masters and lot of others things.
After coming back in 2022 again to USA,
catching up with them I realized I could rarely make active conversations or
contribute to an ongoing topic. Hardly 2 or 3 times I felt being part of the
group but otherwise am now merely a bystander/spectator smiling (or forced) or
observing them.
I see they blended well, along with their families + kids
while my forced stay away from USA from 2018 to 2022 for about 4 and ½ years
meant the gap grew a lot in terms of families, kids, settlement, financial
status, and blah blah blah.
Sometimes, I feel I am standing at cross roads
watching all others zooming away.
For a fact, I never felt any peer pressure
but I must admit that now there are times (although its last only some
seconds) I see that. Movies are my biggest saviors at all times and divert my
mind from a lot of external pressures.
Note:
- Being the only person from my
college to join the MNC Company and the training batch, there is a stark
difference of how I am with my training batch mates and how I was with my
friends before 2010. I made friends with lot of new people. Even in a group of
10 to 15 members of my batch mates, I constantly felt very much involved in
the group conversations. I felt at home during those 6 months of my training
time. But like all bad things end, so do good things. After the end of 6 month
training, the whole batch split away to multiple projects/places and it was
never the same – like my friends before 2010.
- 4th December, 2014 was the day
I travelled to USA (SFO) – will save this for another fine day
