There's no place like home

God, I've been a flighty blogger again.

Um, so the move is over. No big drama. I had everything sitting organized in boxes when my dad got to my place. We were loaded and on the road within 45 minutes, which is pretty fantastic. It was a long drive home (almost 7 hours in a not-so-comfortable truck), but worth it. Lordy am I ever glad to be here.

My niece (who is currently 21 months old) did a happy dance in the window when she saw me for the first time and came at me like a bullet when I came through the door, and that innocent reaction sealed the deal for me. Home is where I belong.

I'm unpacking much more slowly that I usually do, because it doesn't feel like I get to stay. Its school Reading Week right now (Spring Break for you Yankees) so it still feels like I should be going back in a week. Whenever I remind myself that I'm not, I grin. Big and cheesy.

Anyway, there's not a lot of exciting news, but I wanted to at least get a new post up and not feel like I was abandoning my blog. I've got a new fitness routine that I want to try, so that's a future post, so stay tuned. ;)

Leaving

The move date is officially this Thursday. This produces gigantic YAY from the deepest part of me. I'm so excited to go home, closer to my friends, with my family and start to really focus on getting myself back on the track that I want to be one. So seriously. Huge yay. Not diminishing the yay factor.

But. (Isn't there always a but?)

I'm having a hard time with realizing how many friends here (or should I more accurately call them "friends" now?) can't be bothered to take time to see me in person and say goodbye before I leave. I told countless people back in early January, when the decision was made, that I was leaving, and while the date got pushed up from March to February, they still had a month's notice, and a lot of people that I really thought would want to say goodbye (do dinner, do coffee, go to a movie, hell just hang out) haven't.

They haven't called, e-mailed, texted, Facebook'd or anything else, and I'm expecting a lot of "Oh its a shame I didn't see you before you left" lip service once I'm home, because, hello, have I mentioned I'm moving in THREE DAYS? There's packing to be done, and lots of it, and other things to settle before I take off, so there won't be time for getting together the day before I leave.

Its just kinda hitting me hard in the gut tonight that people can't be bothered. Maybe I've been spoiled with friendships in my lifetime, but when I was leaving at the end of summer, I saw one friend for a day, and the next day, she was in town and wanted to go for coffee before she went home. I laughed and reminded her she had seen me the day before, and she laughed back at me and said she wanted to see me as much as possible before I was gone. And this is someone who knew she'd see me at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Reading Week, Easter, etc.

The people here know, because I've told them, that I'm leaving for good. Not coming back. Gone. Done. Finished. And they still can't be bothered, and it stings a little. Or maybe a lot. I need comfort food and a movie night with my real friends.

The lost ones

Maybe I'm having a particularly nostalgic day today, but I can't stop thinking about the fish--I mean friends that got away. You know the friends that you got into a blowout fight with and flat out said "I never want to see you again"? No, not them. I'm talking about the ones that slowly got away...grew apart, changed, went different directions in life, whatever other reasons. THOSE ones.

I'm not a big fan of change, and I'd love to believe that my best friends now will be my best friends for the rest of my life (BFF, y'all). But when I graduated from high school, I got a pretty big kick in the gut about that one. I started to realize, as a few years went by, that the main thing I had in common with some of my friends was simply that we went to the same school. Remove that common denominator and suddenly, there was an ocean of differences between us.

We all went in such different directions. Some went to college, some to university, one's married with a planned (after marriage) child, a couple have oops-but-loved children, one's living in welfare housing with an idiot abusive boyfriend...but I digress. That's another subject for another day. My point is that we're all different now. We're not sharing the fact that we're seniors in high school and about to be unleashed on the world. We've been unleashed from the nest. Some of us flew, some tumbled and then caught the hang of it, and some crash landed on the ground. That's life for ya.

I'm just thinking about some of the ones that slipped away, and missing the closeness we used to have when I realize we'll probably never get it back. We're in different places, and unless both lives change drastically, we'll never be in the same place again. I still see enough about them on Facebook that I know what's going on, and we do lip service to the "Lets get together for coffee when we're all home for *insert next major holiday here*!" but it just never seems to be a priority for either party.

Maybe we've grown up. But more likely, we've grown apart. And that's the part of the growing process that stings sometimes.

The therapist

I was on the verge of tears when I got there, and definitely let some loose when I was asked why I was there. Tears because the past few years have been, to say the least, not fun. But therapist man has an approach that I like. He likes that I admit that I've made mistakes and that events in my life that I am not happy with have been of my own causing. And because I am already past the 'blame-everyone-but-me' stage (believe me, I was there a while ago), we are onto the next stage.

The next stage: Moving forward. He wants me to write a couple paragraphs on where I want to be in 2 years. Short term manageable goals. And then together, we will devise a plan to get there.

I like not feeling as trapped as I did. Its the first step to the new me.