The closer I get to departure date, and while summer starts looking dry and August-like with back-to-school sales cropping up in stores already, I can't help but wax nostalgic about summers past. And about those beautiful, memorable, irreplaceable people who populated them. Sometimes there were long, crazy, late-night summers. Some were more family-oriented. This particular summer feels loaded with work and "grown-up" responsibilities, or those around me are strapped by grown-up responsibilities, and it makes getting away difficult. I think "lament" is a strong word, but I do find myself longing for whiskey-soaked nights on the porch with a Smith Corona, channeling our inner Hemingway and Kerouac (unpretentiously as we could manage), or sitting around a backyard fire, or stopping by the bar across from work after a long evening shift. The last few summers were lovingly carefree and terrifically complex at the same time, with the sort of friendships forged and lessons learned that I wouldn't trade for the world.
I miss those times, but I'm not forgetting all the wonderful people and things I do now, and the opportunities for friendship and socializing and more genuinely wonderful experiences to be had in the future. I find that I'm starting to be able to wrap up a chapter that involves a certain group of people, and harvest my small, yet priceless and carefully cultivated bouquet of memories to hold onto forever. For the first time, over the last few days, I've started to feel a teensy bit homesick for friends I haven't left yet. I've felt this before, when I've moved far from home, but it never fails to amaze me how strong these emotions can be. It's truly the most difficult thing about going so far, knowing no one where I'll be, and that all of my friends and family are here.
This isn't really a sad post -- I hope it doesn't come off that way. I've simply been ruminating on a number of relationships, how valuable they are to me and how they have changed me and made me the person I am. And how I want to try my very best to hold onto them in spite of the distance I'll be putting between us. There's a large handful of folks I'll be very, very sorry to not see as often as I do now.
And my cat counts as a friend, just for the record. ;)
Days to Edinburgh move-in: 35
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