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Life Lesson

My story

By Derrick NguyenPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
1
Life Lesson
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

It's no secret that the pandemic changed the course of many lives all over the world. My life wasn't an exception. In the very beginning, I was rather indifferent to it. I wasn't the biggest social butterfly, so the idea of being locked inside all day wasn't something I was against.

At the start of it all, I wasn't different than everyone else; I watched all my shows a little too quickly, tried (and in my case, failed) a new hobby, beat that one level, more time with my family, and so on. I enjoyed it for a good while.

It was around Christmas time when I got this app I saw on social media. I vaguely remember thinking it was somewhat strange and I remembered not using it much until after the New Year. As I was making space on my phone, stumbled upon the app in the dark corner of my phone.

That was when I met the person who would turn my life on its head, even though I didn't know it at the time. We will call them by the nickname I gave them. 'TT EEE the Irish robot' or 'TT' for short. It was from the time I tried to guess their last name and the only hint they gave was 'it has three E's'.

If I haven't stated before, the previously mentioned app had the option to connect you to a person from anywhere in the world. This person happened to be from Ireland. Being from the United States myself, this was one of the first things we first talked about. We traded stories of our time in our homes. Many things shocked them about the US and vice versa.

One thing I learned that still shocks me to this day, is the existence of 'Tayto land'. An amusement park based on a popular snack brand and as on the nose, as it is; they assured me that it is a real place and that became an inside joke for us.

Our friendship started like any other I suppose. One major difference, however, was the time. With them being halfway across the world, it created a unique situation. They would often stay up late, even by most standards, causing us to fall asleep and wake up around the same time.

This worked out well for us and we grew closer as time went on. We shared every little detail about one another to the point where I would say we depended on each other during the months when the world was still shut down. I remember watching movies together on the computer, talking to one another about our clothes, dreaming about crazy vacations we would take when we were older, and many more things that have faded from my memories with time.

But as much as one would like to freeze a moment, life keeps moving forward. As we got closer to the summer, TT and I grew apart. It was the natural course of things. We got busy with our lives in the real world, less time was spent with each other. I will be the first to admit that I was clinging to the past, to the memories harder than they were.

It led to more arguments, more time ignoring one another, and more games. This climaxed when we finally cut off communication with one another for good. At the time I am writing this, it has been almost a year since I last spoke to them.

During that time, I haven't thought about them as much as I thought I would, it would only happen on those nights when things were just a little too quiet or I run across something that reminds me of them.

The lesson that I learned from them, didn't come from the time that I knew them. It took over a year but I have to come to accept the old adage that if you love something, you have to let it go. As painful as it may be that it is over, I can finally look back on these memories with a smile.

Friendship
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About the Creator

Derrick Nguyen

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