saying goodbye

I hate saying goodbye. One of the drawbacks of living in student housing, though, is that it happens on a pretty regular basis. Everyone leaves sooner or later, and now that we're halfway through our fifth year, families we've come to know and love are all starting to leave. By the end of this summer I don't think there will be anyone left in the neighborhood who was here when we moved in.

Today is a sad day. One of my close friends, who I've known for over three years now, and her daughter, who's been a close friend of James' for that time, left to move to Missouri this afternoon (with the rest of their family). I managed not to cry when saying goodbye, but it'll come later. She was of the first friends I made here who was also a mother, also a liberal in this conservative neighborhood, also into good books and girl talk -- none of these things is enough on its own, but combine them with a sense of humor, warmth, and good conversation and she's a friend who will be very much missed.

James will also be losing a good friend -- someone with whom he's spent hours and hours of playtime, at each other's homes and at the playgrounds and sandboxes, someone who he bickers with like a sibling, someone he looks up to, someone he has learned from, someone he loves. It will be a hard adjustment for both of us to lose our friends.