on being left behind.

{photo by Edwin Navarro; edit & typography by Zachary Smith}

Our friends are moving in May. 

Not all of our friends, of course, but friends we spend a great deal of time with, and after watching two dear friends move away last summer, I'm just not sure how much more I can take. 

Tallahassee, because of its size or its proximity to three fairly large universities, is a transient town. As a child, I didn't realize this. I went to the same school from second until twelfth grade, and my friend group largely stayed the same over the course of my entire childhood existence. I didn't know that people graduate from college and move and get jobs, didn't understand that when you're a grown-up, people go where the money is, or where family is, or where opportunity lives. 

Now, I'm approaching 27, and I've watched as a lot of the people we love up and leave for bigger, better opportunities. It's not selfish of them, by any means. They're doing what they have to do, and I often get to watch with a mixture of pride and happiness and gratitude that they're living their dreams: in Chicago, in Nashville, in Jacksonville, in Athens, in Montgomery. 

Jordan and I are both eldest children. We flew the coop before our siblings did, and we've both been told -- many times -- we'll never be able to understand what it was like for our younger counterparts to be left behind.

The thing is, though, we all get left behind at some point. Of course, our parents are right: We'll never be able to go back and relive the pain and frustration our brother and sister experienced when we left home for the first time. We'll never be able to fully relate to the burden they carried, because we were off carrying burdens of our own: burdens of homesickness and adventure, new friendships and cafeteria food. 

But part of life is accepting what can feel a lot like abandonment -- friends who move, parents who age and leave this life, relationships broken beyond repair. It's all, I imagine, a lot like what our siblings faced when we turned 18. And while I don't envy their place, I do believe they have an advantage Jordan and I didn't have prior to adulthood. They've been left behind, and even if they didn't handle it gracefully the first time, they know what to expect now, and they can face being left again with confidence. 

When my friends leave for their next adventures -- whether it's in a new town or with a new baby -- I don't want to be bitter. I want to handle their departures with grace and happiness, with gratitude for what we had and hope for what we can have in the future.

Charles Schulz once said, “Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say goodbye. I hate goodbyes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.”

I am in desperate need of more hellos. But until the opportunity to meet someone new comes along, I want to be grateful and gracious, even in the goodbyes. I want to bid my friends a hopeful farewell with more smiles and fewer tears, with the understanding that this season, however brief, has been filled with meaningful relationships I know I'll look back on with gratitude. And one day, when it's our turn to again embark on a new adventure, I hope we're given the same grace.

Here's to looking forward.