It's Never Happened Before

I am 23 and I have never had a friend move away.  Until this week.

How does that happen?  Kids go through it all the time when their elementary school splits into a couple of junior highs and then their junior highs split into a couple of high schools.  Living in a small town I never had to worry about whether this or that friend lived inside the school boundaries.  We went to kindergarten together and we would graduate together.

Graduating from high school with a nasty case of the "get me outa here's" I was gone before summer could blink its lazy eye.  I left all that I knew behind and embarked to Utah where I would have a couple of good friends for the summer and would eventually leave them for my next grand adventure of college.  Granted, one of them went with me on this grand adventure, but by the end of the semester we were no longer speaking and when she left for another apartment complex I made a new friend who would stay with me for the rest of my college years.

At the end of the best two years of my life, and no, I sure didn't go on a mission, everyone was packing up their rooms into storage bins and heading home for the summer.  We were all leaving together, bound for some other destination the next fall.  They were all going to Utah State and I was the one doing the leaving as I hiked my way up to Idaho for the most grueling two and a half years of my life.

Those Snow College roommates and I stayed in touch, having sleep overs or bridal showers once a semester and I made new friends in Idaho who were all much younger than me and when I graduated I was the one doing the leaving, again.

Did my student teaching and we've been in Farmington ever since.  It's harder to make friends when there isn't as much variety as what's offered on a college campus but I finally found someone I connected with.  I loved hanging out with her and I am only sad that I didn't ignite the friendship earlier.  We only spent a good 3 or 4 weeks together but I admired her and was so happy to have someone around that I enjoyed being with so much.  And then she got the happy news that her husband got a job further south and they would be leaving within the week.

I was so hurt I cried.  I mean, she is my friend so I was happy for her.  But I hurt for me.  I cried maybe three or four times and still wonder if I will ever find someone as awesome as she is.  How it took all the way until I was 23 to find a friend good enough to cry over when our ways parted is beyond me.  There's probably something very psychoanalytic about that.