Is the World Getting Smaller?

I hear it said time and time again, "the world just keeps getting smaller." And yet every time I befriend someone who doesn't live in my backyard I am left wondering if that is true. Yes, nation-states are increasingly interconnected and opportunities for personal travel has never been greater. But somehow, as I pulled up near the moving truck, wished my friend Greg and his partner well in their new home in California, the hugs given and received felt more like distance and time which we know cannot be easily overcome.

In the past couple of months I have watched friends leave Madison for Pennsylvania, Arizona and California at the same time I welcome peers attending law school with me to Wisconsin. It's an ever-constant process of shifting and scratching out a new sense of belonging. And in three years I will be wishing most of them well somewhere else, as they will most likely be for me.

I am left looking at a map full of places I have and have not been reflecting back to me the faces of individuals I have met along the way. Many of them met while on their own journeys far from home. So many people I would love to be able to meet for "coffee" to swap stories, catch up and reminisce. The sadness comes in realizing how many of them I will most likely never see again -- ever.

The more I experience of the world, the larger it seems to become. Every place I look I see the streets, hear the sounds, the smells, savor the foods, contemplate the challenges to overcome, and the simple joys of daily life. For the friends whose homelands I have never visited, I am drawn to wanting to fill in these unknowns. But where to start. Who's first?

Part of me wonders if this is a unique characteristic of the U.S.. Probably a segment of the U.S. population, but still specific to this nation and this time. The sheer size of the U.S. provides the opportunity for movement in ways other nations similar to us do not. As much as I know I have gained a great deal from being mobile over the past decade, I also recognize the loss.

I wish for my friends wonderful new communities in which to grow and prosper, but at the same time I am sad to see them go and wish it wasn't going to be so long before I see them again.