The Long Way to Each Other

JY and I have known each other since we were five, before reception year. I do not remember a dramatic first meeting, or a single moment when we became friends. She was simply there: in the background of childhood, then in the foreground, then woven into so many memories that it is difficult to separate friendship from growing up itself.

We were quite different in character, but somehow that didn’t stopped us from getting along. If anything, our differences made the friendship easier to remember. She seemed to grow up emotionally much earlier than I did. She understood people, social situations, and the little rules of human relationships in a way that I was too childlike to notice. I was much more impulsive, always moving around, always saying things too directly, and often speaking before thinking. She loved reading and thinking, and began reading coming-of-age novels when we were still very young. I, by contrast, could never sit still for long enough. She also had a natural talent for organising people. Many of the house parties I remember from childhood were brought together by her; in fact, she probably organised almost every house party I attended when we were young. Her parents were very good at finding interesting classes, good teachers, and useful opportunities. She went to many 兴趣班 (extracurriculum), and I sometimes followed like copycats. If JY’s parents found a good teacher, there was a decent chance I would end up there too.

As we grew older, we were often in different classes but still in the same schools. This meant we always shared many common friends, even when our day-to-day lives were not exactly the same. I had close friends in different stages of school, but JY remained, in my mind, my best friend. Even now, if someone asked me who my best friend is, her name would still come first. I am quite certain that we will be lifetime friends.

Things changed when we were around fifteen. Her parents felt that she did not quite fit the schooling system we were in, so they made the brave decision to send her to the United States. She worked hard and later went to a very good high school in Baltimore where she fit well. From then on, our friendship became more international, less casual, and more dependent on timing. We could no longer assume that we would see each other after school, during holidays, or at someone’s house. We only kinda kept in touch.

The summer she graduated from high school, we travelled together with some other friends. It felt like a continuation of the many trips we had taken when we were young. By then, both of us had started to build lives in different places. Still, when we were together, it did not feel strange. Some friendships do not require much warming up. You simply return to them.

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Later, things changed again, more quietly and more seriously.

The pandemic made distance heavier for everyone, but for many international students and workers in the United States, distance was not only emotional or geographical. It became administrative. It became legal. It became a question of whether leaving the country might mean not being able to return.

Many of my friends who studied or worked in the US entered this strange suspended state. They had jobs, homes, routines, partners, pets, friendships, and ordinary lives there, but their ability to continue those lives depended on visas, appointments, lotteries, processing times, consular backlogs, employer sponsorship, and policies that could change without much warning. The H-1B system, in particular, can make a person feel as if their future is both highly structured and completely uncertain at the same time. You may have a job, but not full control over your right to stay. You may have annual leave, but not the freedom to use it internationally. You may want to go home for a family event, a wedding, a funeral, or simply to rest, but leaving can feel like a risk.

JY entered that situation too. For several years, she could not easily leave the country. During those years, I had more mobility than she did. Once, I went back to her childhood home and had dinner with her parents during her birthday week. It felt strangely familiar, almost like when we were young, except that she was not there.

I remember thinking that this was one of the quiet traumas of immigration. Not the dramatic kind that appears all at once, but the slow, administrative kind that reshapes how a person lives. People sometimes call the H-1B system “visa slavery”, and I understand why. When your right to stay is tied so tightly to your job, work stops being just work. It becomes the foundation underneath your entire life. A bad manager, a company restructuring, a visa delay, or a missed appointment can suddenly become existential.

From the outside, especially to people born with passports that quietly open doors across much of the developed world, this may still look like a successful immigrant story. Someone studies hard, gets a good job, builds a life in the US, and appears settled. But that appearance hides a very different reality. Many people grow up assuming that the right to live, work, leave, return, change jobs, or take a career break is simply part of adulthood. For visa-dependent immigrants, these are not basic freedoms; they are conditional permissions. Inside that life, there can be a constant, low-level fear. Can I leave the country? Can I come back? What happens if I am laid off? What if my visa stamping is delayed? What if the rules change? What if I have done everything right, and it is still not enough?

This kind of life trains people into caution. You postpone visits home. You miss birthdays, weddings, and ordinary family time. You stay in jobs longer than you want to. You become grateful for things that should have been basic freedoms. And slowly, the uncertainty becomes part of your personality: a habit of calculating risk before desire, permission before movement, survival before happiness.

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In May 2025, I went to Ohio for a conference, and afterwards I travelled to Florida with JY. After years of postponed possibilities, visa complications, and pandemic distance, being in the same country suddenly made seeing each other feel both simple and urgent.

The Florida trip was awesome. Not only because Florida itself is awesome, although obviously it is, but because being with her felt like going back to being young again.

We went to Universal Studios Orlando, on the day before the new Epic Universe park opened. JY has no particular interest in theme parks, while I am hugely enthusiastic about them. In a way, this was exactly the same difference between us as when we were young. She would calmly go along with something because I was excited, and I would be overexcited enough for both of us.

We also went to Sarasota Beach (credit her boyfriend who very generously drove us around). There, we took lots of pictures together. Some of them were normal beach photos; some were deliberate attempts to recreate old poses from our childhood pictures.

The funny thing is that some poses simply could not be replicated anymore. We had grown up, our arms and legs were longer. Our bodies no longer folded into the same small shapes as before. What used to look natural as children became awkward, hilarious, and physically impossible as adults.

There is a particular kind of comfort in being known by someone from childhood. They remember versions of you that no one in your current life has seen. They know your family, your old schools, your earlier habits, your childhood stories, your embarrassing phases, and the places you came from before you learned how to describe yourself professionally. With JY, I do not need to explain the whole background. So much of it is already shared.

The Florida trip was therefore not only a travel memory. It was also a reminder of how much adulthood depends on logistics that children never imagine. When we were five, friendship meant classes, school corridors, shared teachers, parents arranging things, and trips during holidays. As adults, friendship sometimes means visa categories, immigration queues, flight prices, annual leave, conference schedules, and the emotional courage to keep trying despite distance.

I used to think lifelong friendship meant always growing in the same direction. Now I think it may mean something gentler: allowing each other to grow in different places, under different pressures, while still recognising each other when paths cross again.

JY and I have not lived parallel lives. But we have lived connected ones. And despite the distance, the pandemic, and the bureaucracy of borders, I still feel certain of this friendship. Some people remain part of your life not because circumstances make it easy, but because the bond was built before life became complicated.

That, perhaps, is what makes it lifelong.