Meeting Claudia

On a shopping trip together the day after I arrived

I met my penpal Claudia.  In person.  I gave her a hug.  We went on a walk around her neighborhood and ate dinner sitting at the desk in her room.

This moment was in the works for years.  For months and months and months we have been dreaming of meeting in person--making plans and imagining what it would be like to be together at last.

Town Hall in Backnang, a town near Claudia's village where we went shopping

She was not my first penpal, or even the first penpal I'd met in person.  And really there was nothing remarkable about our friendship in the beginning.  I never would have guessed it from our very early letters exchanged so many years ago, but through many letters and postcards, packages and skype calls, we've grown extraordinarily close.

She's the penpal who sends me boxes and boxes of candy when she knows I am struggling, just as a reminder that "you are not alone."  She's the penpal who regularly posts inspiring quotes on my facebook wall with long messages explaining how grateful she is for our friendship, just because she was thinking about me on a Monday afternoon.  She's the penpal who's letters have grown to a record 32 pages long, discussing everything from what we ate for breakfast to out deepest thoughts and fears.

From our evening walk together around Claudia's village

Sometimes I sit back and marvel over just how unlikely, just how surreal it is that I'm writing this update from her house in her little village in Germany.

Born nearly 6,000 miles apart on different continents, our paths should have never crossed.  We grew up with different languages, different cultures, different realities.

But somehow we both decided to look for a penpal, and somehow we ended up on the same website at the same time.  Somehow I posted a message and she replied and I wrote back.  Somehow her first letter to me didn't get lost along the way, like so many letters do, and somehow the million things that could have prevented us from becoming friends didn't happen and we kept writing, and writing, and writing.

Somehow we were exactly the type of friend the other one needed at exactly that time in our lives.

A beautiful protestant church in Stuttgart, the biggest city near where Claudia lives

On the 8 1/2 hour bus ride from Berlin to Stuttgart I had plenty of time to cycle through a complete range of emotions about finally meeting Claudia in person.  I had time to go from complete exhaustion and "I can't handle this right now" to complete giddiness, practically bouncing up and down in my seat.

For months I wondered how I would react.  Would I start sobbing uncontrollably?  Would I run up to her jumping up and down?  Would I be so overwhelmed I would shut down and not respond at all?

New Castle in Stuttgart

In reality I didn't do any of those things.  In reality we exchanged a long, warm hug, a few giggles and seamlessly moved into place beside each other, as if every Wednesday afternoon I came by for a visit.  As if every Wednesday I flew halfway across the world just to have dinner and spend the evening chatting with my dear friend.

This time together hasn't been at all like I imagined.  It has been marred by health problems and difficult family situations and life obligations, but in many ways that is how it should have been.  Our friendship is not one created on unrealistic expectations, or molded through imperfect, fairytale versions presented of ourselves through carefully crafted letters.  Like my "real life" friendships, ours is one formed through messy circumstances and misunderstandings.  Life has gotten in the way of our best laid plans and we have been forced to readjust and replan.  I won't lie and say my time here has been easy, because it hasn't.  It's been emotional and challenging every single day as I see someone I love dearly struggling.

The good news is I will be back in June and hopefully some of these difficult circumstances will have past, and Claudia and I will finally get to enjoy a few carefree moments together.  But still, I'm incredibly grateful for these few days where I got to be a physical presence in Claudia's life.

To be able to sit down together and talk about what's going on without waiting weeks for a letter to arrive has been an enormous blessing.  To be able to call her without calculating the time difference and to see her face without battling grainy video delay on skype is not something I have taken for granted.

I consider myself very lucky to have a friend like Claudia in my life, and despite the difficulties, I am so grateful for the time I've gotten to spend with her these past few days.