I have always relied upon
I had my last girls' night with A. last night. I've been snappish and out of sorts all week, and I think it's because she's leaving. I haven't made a lot of close friends in the last decade or so; some, but not a lot. And in this town, it seems like every time I find someone I feel really comfortable with, they leave within the year. A. is a "furniture friend" - someone I don't need to treat like a guest, whose refrigerator I can scrounge through without asking first, whose couch I can fall asleep on, someone I don't need to have an event or a meal to plan around when I want to hang out, someone I could call at 3 a.m. if I really needed to and were the sort of person who would do such things. That's rare and precious, and I'm really going to miss her.
On my way to A's house last night there was a mama duck and a bevy of ducklings crossing a big four-way intersection near my house. I spotted them and almost leapt from my car as they headed out into traffic, sure that they would be duck pancake but ultimately helpless to do anything but watch. And you know, every car on the road screeched to a halt. The light turned green and the whole intersection waited with bated breath as the little caravan waddled through and into the relative safety of the gutter on the other side. Even the buses stopped. Sometimes I get tired of my homogenous little town and its solipsistically liberal little ways, but there's a lot to love, too. I got a little sniffly, even.
At the post office yesterday, I picked up a registered mail package. I didn't know what it would be, so when the clerk handed me a brown envelope with a return address and stamps from China, my heart leapt in my throat. I lost my best friend from my time in China more than a decade ago, when he emigrated to Canada and then moved without leaving a forwarding address. I've thought so many times about finding him again, and have never known how to go about it. And then this package, from Shanghai, and I thought, "How did he find me? How did he know?" I teared up, and my heart got these crazy excited pangs. Unfortunately, the package was only some things I'd ordered off the internets and forgotten about. Still, that moment of hope was painfully exquisite. I need to hang on to the important people in my life harder.
Which is to say: Has anyone reading this ever used a private investigator to find someone? Across national borders? With very little evidence to go on? (I don't even think I have the address at which I last saw him, eight or nine years ago.) Because I think I want to do this, but I haven't the faintest idea about where to start.
On my way to A's house last night there was a mama duck and a bevy of ducklings crossing a big four-way intersection near my house. I spotted them and almost leapt from my car as they headed out into traffic, sure that they would be duck pancake but ultimately helpless to do anything but watch. And you know, every car on the road screeched to a halt. The light turned green and the whole intersection waited with bated breath as the little caravan waddled through and into the relative safety of the gutter on the other side. Even the buses stopped. Sometimes I get tired of my homogenous little town and its solipsistically liberal little ways, but there's a lot to love, too. I got a little sniffly, even.
At the post office yesterday, I picked up a registered mail package. I didn't know what it would be, so when the clerk handed me a brown envelope with a return address and stamps from China, my heart leapt in my throat. I lost my best friend from my time in China more than a decade ago, when he emigrated to Canada and then moved without leaving a forwarding address. I've thought so many times about finding him again, and have never known how to go about it. And then this package, from Shanghai, and I thought, "How did he find me? How did he know?" I teared up, and my heart got these crazy excited pangs. Unfortunately, the package was only some things I'd ordered off the internets and forgotten about. Still, that moment of hope was painfully exquisite. I need to hang on to the important people in my life harder.
Which is to say: Has anyone reading this ever used a private investigator to find someone? Across national borders? With very little evidence to go on? (I don't even think I have the address at which I last saw him, eight or nine years ago.) Because I think I want to do this, but I haven't the faintest idea about where to start.
posted by The Stute Fish at 11:05
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