In March of 2012, I wrote a post about one of my best friends who was moving across the country for a new job. It seems like just yesterday we said goodbye. Just yesterday I was crying my eyes out, just yesterday I was wondering when we’d see each other again, just yesterday I was trying to make sense of all the change, and just yesterday I felt empty beyond belief.
But friend has returned.
My favorite Keane song was playing when we said our good-byes. “Everybody’s Changing” really couldn’t have summed things up better, and it described both of us since we each had a new job we were heading off to…just on opposite sides of the country.
I remember the hard time I used to have every time I’d leave California for another semester of college in Michigan. My parents would always say, “We’re just a plane ride away,” and it was true. A flight from Detroit to Los Angeles was similar in duration to some of the worst days commuting on L.A.’s 405 freeway — maybe even less, depending on where you began and ended. Ever since, I’ve never thought of distance as distance. I’ve thought of it as nothing more than a small obstacle easily maneuvered around. Get in a car, get on a bus, get on a train or get on a plane and you’re on your way. It’s really that simple.
Even so, having friend leave was different. I suddenly had a huge void that nobody would be able to fill. You don’t just shrug off 17 years of friendship and not care that one party is moving a few thousand miles away — in fact, you care very much. And then I remembered that I’d been in those same shoes before: I left California for Connecticut, and it was an adventure for me. Similarly, I realized I needed to look at friend’s move the same way: as an adventure.
While that chapter is over, a new one is just beginning back home in The Golden State. Despite things coming full circle, everybody’s changing. Still. Day in, day out. We’re not back in 2012, we’re in 2014. Older, more experienced as people, employees, friends, and citizens of this world — this crazy world. And I’m so thankful my friend is back to laugh at the craziness with me.
