a good friend.

I have been blessed with some of the greatest friends on the planet. I know most people think they can argue the same but I doubt that anyone has better friends than I do. As my time here begins to wind down (18 days and counting) I am struggling to find enough time to spend with the people I have met here who have become my support system, my source of entertainment, my surrogate family. In some ways the move still doesn't feel very real. Every moment of every day is so crammed with last minute to-dos (both the fun kind and the necessary kind) that I haven't had a lot of down time to process the emotions that are swirling in my heart. I still have nearly 3 weeks left, after all.  Plenty of time to see everyone and fill my mind with memories to hold me through those months I'll spend in my parent's basement (it's only temporary!) and then the months I'll be all alone in a foreign country. Right?!

Well, everything sort of came to a head this weekend as I found myself saying my first real good bye. One of the best friends I've made out here is leaving town this week and won't be back until after I'm gone and, thinking I had more time left than I did, there was a mad scramble to find a few minutes in the chaos for one last heart to heart before we go our separate ways. Our late night tete a tete Sunday was more than worth the groggy day at work on Monday.

It was just the first of many but I'm already feeling the loss. So far I've kept the tears at bay (though I've found they leak out at other, non-emotionally justifiable times like when I'm reading a very not-sad book at lunch at work!) but I imagine that my drive out of town is going to be a soggy one.

A host of cheesy greeting card phrases run through my mind. Things like "god can't be everywhere that's why he gave us friends" and "friendship is a single soul living in two bodies." Things that sound ridiculous until you know them to be true (though that doesn't make them any less cheesy!) I'll never have enough time to get my fill of some of the people who have touched my life and there's no way to fill the holes that will surface in my heart when they are no longer near, but my heart and life are immeasurably improved by their influence and a little part of each of them will go with me when I go.