Landslide

It was when our office moved building locations, way back in 2008, that we really began to get to know each other.  She and I found ourselves seated next to one another in the new office space, a mere cube wall dividing us.  We worked on the same team within the company, sat through many of the same weekly meetings.  It turned out that she was from Florida, had in fact, gone to the University of Florida, whereas both my mother and brother were Florida State alum.  The UF and FSU rival runs deep, I've been aware of it all my life, despite never having lived in the sunshine state or actually attended either of the schools.  Both of us were single, accomplished, well-traveled women in our 30's with a penchant for live music, good books, and Oscar worthy movies.  Naturally, we hit it off right from the start.

When you live in a city miles and miles from your immediate family and relatives, you rely on your friends. You count on them, they on you.  Sure, you meet for brunch or dinner or a yoga class or a Saturday afternoon movie; things friends anywhere do.  You travel together and take fun trips and have adventures.  But.  You also call them when you're too sick to get out of the house and get more ginger ale or soup, you beg them to move your car for you if you're out of town on a street cleaning day less it be towed.  You check in on one another.  You support one another - good, bad, and all the in between. 

If you are very lucky, some of those friends begin to feel, in fact, just like family.

While we didn't stay in those same desks or cube areas or even on the same work teams forever, we very much remained friends.  Family.

This dear pal moved back home to Florida on Friday.  It is a move she is making for all of the right reasons; a leap that I am so very proud of her for taking.  It's a step into unknown waters but in my heart of hearts I know she is going to kill it down there both in her new job and new city.  Turns out you can be immensely thrilled and excited for someone at the very same time you can feel heartbroken and sad.

In the past few years I have watched several of my very closest friends  - my surrogate family - leave this city.  Some move far away for jobs or romance or simply the idea of something new.  Some stay close, heading only out to the suburbs to raise their growing families.  It is nothing new, these evolving lives we are all leading.  I have always known we wouldn't all stay in the city or in our respective apartments for the rest of our lives.  Still, it does break my heart a little bit each time I wave goodbye to one of them from an apartment stoop, or, months later, walk past their old, now occupied by someone else - a complete stranger! - apartment.  I always wish them well on their next journey of course.  And I am always genuinely excited and proud of them.  Even as I know that nothing lasts forever, the only constant is change, I cannot help but catch moments here and there that I want to pause.  Times and events that I want to freeze, that I do not take for granted.  "This, I will think.  Notice.  This.  Remember.  This."

I am so glad I had so many of those moments with my friend, with all of my friends.  That I have and cherish so many simple perfect moments with so many phenomenal people I know and care about.

So much of life is about chance.  Where we live, where we work, who we meet at random can define so many of our days, so much of our life.

Notice them.

Be grateful that you know them.  That you met them.  That in this big ol' grand and sweeping world we were all lucky enough to find each other.