Goodbyes

This last month we've been saying goodbye again.  One of my least favorite things. 

At the beginning of the month, my daughter's freshly graduated best friend, my Other Daughter, moved out of state for a new adventure and chapter in her life.  While we're excited for her, we're holding out hope that when her lease is up in the Spring she'll head back.  Pray for loads and loads of snow in northern Utah people!  And this week a family we've known for several years headed east for Texas.  And yes, for those of you in the know, I am purposely leaving out the great state of because I've come to harbor the seeds of hatred for that state.  It has gobbled up no fewer than 5 of my favorite women and their families.  I guess those longhorns really can hook 'em.

It seems in the last 10 years, since we moved to this little one-horse town, we have said more goodbyes than I have in all the rest of my lifetime.  I don't know if that would really hold up under close examination, so maybe it's just that the goodbyes we've been forced to say in the last decade have worn much harder on me than before.

Is it that it's a small town, so friends are fewer and farther between?  Maybe.  Is it because the population out here is...unlike any I've lived among before?  Probably.  Is it because I've now lived here longer than any other place in my adult life?  Is it because I'm becoming more and more certain I might never go somewhere else?  Is it because I'm in the wrong place?

That last suggestion was made to me several years ago by a husband's friend on the eve of their departure for the greener pastures of Humboldt, CA.  It's an interesting thing to ponder since I'm pretty sure we're not going anywhere.  I had been lamenting to him that in the previous 6 months we had said goodbye to 2 other families and were now saying goodbye to his.  I was telling him that it was funny because all of the people who moved (and continue to move) were always the last people that thought they would go.  The pattern goes like this...we meet them and become friends...in discussing the fact that people seem to move around a lot they declare that they're going nowhere and all the really solid reasons why...then within the year...AND I AM NOT EXAGGERATING HERE...some weird random personal/job/health issue comes up....and a For Sale sign appears in their front yard.

It really stinks.
Maybe I need to befriend myself...ha ha ha!

I prefer a casual, quick, just like I'm going to see you next week as usual, kind of goodbye.  Even when that's not what we're doing.  I don't go for the long, dramatic, crying, desperate hugging goodbye.  Which isn't to say it hasn't happened...just that I can pass on that all day long.

This morning I said a very different goodbye.  It was casual, the usual, how we've been doing it for years, goodbye.  Only this time, in Seal Beach, at my grandfather's bedside, he struggled to open his eyes and we both knew it might be our last until we eventually meet up on the other side.  Of course I'm planning to go see him Friday too...so maybe I'll get lucky.

I've always believed in 'the other side'.  Heaven.  Whatever you want to call it.  I like the idea that fried chicken will have no calories, my skin won't burn in the sun, too many margaritas won't give me a hangover and I'll spend some serious time lying on a beach with all my favorite people.  It's my version of the sweet beyond.

Maybe all of this is why I haven't felt like writing.  Actually, if we're gonna get bare naked honest, why I've been avoiding writing like the plague. I've been in a mood.  But it's time to bounce back and enjoy the sunshine.

Love to you all!

~Sherri