good friends and past lives
I am lucky enough to feel at home here, even while The Little Red Haired Girl is up in New England revisiting a lot of our old haunts and seeing people who have been pivotal characters in our lives for the past few years. Tonight, after Everything Guy and I finished our paper, he, The Thespian, Mischief Man, and The Kindergarten Teacher came over with stuff to grill and cocktails to mix, and we had a fabulous time making dinner, eating, and yucking it up in general. It was fun, as it always is with them, but also a nice reminder that I do have a place here.
On Tuesday afternoon when The Little Red Haired Girl landed in Boston she left a message on my cell phone saying that she’d landed safely, and “it feels like home.” I’m not sure why, but when I heard that I just burst into tears. Not because I am unhappy here or regret leaving or anything like that. I think it just helped me suddenly remember how much I still miss it, and my friends there. But I think that part (a small part) of that emotion was also realizing that I can and have gone on now, here, and that I’ve let go of a little of the attachment I have to that old life. I will still really love going back to visit, and I still miss my friends and that life I had with them, but life does move on. I guess it is part of growing up to pass from one phase to another, and learn how to negotiate and accept those kinds of changes without conceptualizing them as loss. Maybe I’m just experiencing the transition from mourning a past life to some sort of nostalgia.
But still, I miss being there an awful lot.