near and away

i had a lovely weekend.  a genuinely blessed weekend.  i hope you did also.  but enough about you...


this weekend i reconnected with so many friends.  aside from one friend who left town for the beach and another who is studying for law school finals, i saw almost every one of my close friends over the course of this weekend. miraculous.  some of these friends are now long-distance friends, some of them are just rarely seen short-distance friends, and one short-distance friend is about to be a long-distant friend.   the weekend really got me thinking about 'moving on' and moving away. 


i would never begrudge a friend for moving and leaving me or my city behind.  it has happened so many times.  when i lived in Pittsburgh, everyone i knew moved to New York or DC.  after a few years in Philadelphia, several of my closest friends moved to New York and DC.  now my buddy Tom is moving to Chicago, which gave rise to the happy occasion of a goodbye party where a bunch of our buds got together and caught up over baked brie and a bunch of booze.  

i'm happy for Tom and all the other friends who have moved on to bigger cities or simply better opportunities.  i miss so many of them but -- wait.  no, i don't really miss them.


because it doesn't usually seem like they're far away.  i know what's going on in the lives of my friends from around the country, thanks to El Facebooko and Gchat.  i don't feel left behind, because it still doesn't feel like some of my friends have left.  two dear friends who moved to LA at the end of 2010 were in town this weekend and, while i loved hugging them and seeing them in person, i didn't feel as if we had missed a beat.  it's the same with New York friends, who are fortunately a quick drive or bus ride away.  it will likely be the same with Tom once he's in Chicago.  i think that we're so lucky to live in a time when people move around a lot but our nomadity (just made up that word) doesn't have to affect the closeness of the relationship.*  


there are also quite a few advantages to having friends move to new cities.  for instance, when it's time to travel for business or for a vacation, you're more likely to have friends in that destination.  that means no hotel bills and hopefully a ride from and to the airport.  those are pretty much the only advantages that i can come up with right now, but i'm sure that there are others.





*romantic relationships are an exception.  you can't hold hands or kiss over El Facebooko, though i guess Skype lets you do some fun things together.  the LTR is a crazy concept, and i'm not a fan.