Move Along, Move Along

It's a natural thing of life - friends grow up and move away. After attending high school and college right here in Atlanta, and then finding my first job and my first home here, too, I have seen a lot (read: A LOT) of friends make big life changes and move away. Some went abroad for school, and some went up and down the coastlines for fun. Others got married and moved outside the perimeter (OTP, gasp!) for a big home and a few acres, while some shifted cross-country for their dream jobs. Most of the time, I have been more excited for those friends and their new opportunities awaiting them than I have been sad (or even mad) about them leaving. After all, today's world of texting, Skype and Facebook might even keep me "closer" to them while they are 1,000 miles away than I'd be with them here nearby!

Monica and Chandler were only moving 10 minutes outside
the city and everyone fell apart :)

This doesn't change the fact, though, that it stinks. It just plain stinks. I miss my friends. I miss having people to just "meet up with" when I need a gal pal (or a drink, for that matter!). I miss seeing the girls out and about on the weekends, or even just seeing them once a month or so for dinner. Compared to the man's group of friends, too, all of whom are still here in town, my friends are far and even farther away. I am one of the few left that has an ATL zip code.

I absolutely love my life here in Atlanta, and wouldn't have changed a thing about it if I had had the chance. I would never have had the opportunity to have the career I do, nor own the home I do, if I was in another part of the country. I am closer with my immediate family than I ever was, and I got to start this very blog based on my world here! Plus, I get to go to home football games whenever I want, and I can even take the MARTA there. How sweet is that?

But in the end, it's still bittersweet. I just heard last week that another close friend of mine is moving away, and these feelings have all resurfaced again. I can only imagine what it's like to be from a small town and have everyone move away, because here I am in a BIG town and it's still really hard to witness that!

In the meantime, though, I am still meeting even more new friends. For a while there, I almost was at a point where I didn't feel like I needed to, because I was blessed with so many great gal pals. But now, more than ever, I realize that there is never an end to making new friends. Sometimes you need the new ones more than you'd ever guess. And sometimes, just sometimes, you just need a ten-minute call with that oldest BFF to make everything around you seem a-ok :)