A dear friend of mine is moving. This doesn’t sound terrible, but where we live, not many people move away. Our community is tight knit and we all know each other. A lot of us now have teens and some in college. We’ve been here a while and the roots are starting to grow deep. In fact, I cannot remember the last time a friend of mine moved away.
Sirskatesalot and I landed here by sheer luck. We had only 48 hours to buy a house, not a ton of dough and we wanted our kids in good neighborhood schools. This was the only house that met our requirements and boy, it was not pretty. In fact, I sat on the porch and cried when the movers were moving our stuff in. I could not believe we had bought such a heap and I was overwhelmed with the freeways, the noise, police helicopters…I hated it.
We have now been here a decade. Wow, that is a long time. Most of our kids’ lives. This is all they know. We have dear friends. We are entrenched, in a good way. Our house is not so much a heap anymore, the freeways are not intimidating, and the beach is a stone’s throw away. Did I mention we have dear friends? We are a community. We take care of each other. We eek out time to have fun. It’s actually surprising how much fun you can have when you are middle aged and boring.
We laugh at memories and current realities. We know each other’s quirks, we suffer through most of them and we embrace a lot of them. We even embrace our friends’ children’s quirks most of the time (ahem, this puts us up there with Mother Teresa if you know what I mean). Our friend who is moving away will be sorely missed. She is a riot. There will be a hole here without her. She is so awesome, though, that her new home will embrace her and she will become entrenched, but she’ll also gain an accent, big hair and a lot more make-up. Any guesses where she is going to land? I can only utter a weak, “Yeehaw” because I want her to stay.
Texas!! Ugh. They have some of the biggest bugs I’ve ever seen.
Ah, smartypants! I can only imagine the size of the bugs but if they are anything like the size of women’s hair, I am nervous just thinking about it. Hmmm…do hair and bug size correlate for every geographic area? I feel a research project coming on…
Research to me means Roadtrip! And it seems NTP has the right idea (I’d skip the mechanical bull tho).
I know who you are talking about and trust my, hubbie hewhosurfsalot and isneverabsent is freaking out. She is the only person worthy of hanging out with his 30 first graders. I hope it’s only temporary for selfish reasons but change is good. Our loss is their gain and the good news is, she’s only a text, email or phone call away. Happy trails! Bonus, we plan a girls weekend to visit her and eat excellent barbeque and ride mechanical bulls. Downside?
September for bbq and mechanical bull rides!
Seriously, NTP? BB, do not believe for a SECOND that NTP will EVER go on a “girls trip.” She’s only visited me once since I’ve lived here. Not going to happen.
Aha, I sense a challenge here…can we get NTP to go on a legit “girls’ weekend”? I’m in.
Jen, join us! We can hit Austin too!! We will check out Gesine’s new bakery restaurant near her sis Sandra.
Research to me means Roadtrip! And it seems NTP has the right idea (I’d skip the mechanical bull tho).
Bring on the mechanical bull! TX or bust.
Jenn I love ur blogs and find myself always wanting to respond, check in with u, add my 2 cents. Love them. Keep it up u r awesome! Love u, Trish
Sent from my iPhone Trish Anderson
Thx, mama. Keep leavin your two cents. You are being very proper so far…where are the real TDZ comments?
I know who you are talking about and I am freaking out that she is leaving. Me, who is usually calm. Well, not these past few weeks but I won’t go into that here. MissmovingtoTXprettyOCgirl makes time to take me shopping when I am just a robot with worry. I am not a shopper but she succeeds in calming my mind. She comes by daily delivering a 13 year old home work helper to assist my couch bound teenager. She picks me up a month ago within 15 minutes of receiving a call where I could not talk coherently. She takes me to a quiet dark bar when I refuse to be seen in public……….and hears me out……..and calms me down………..and doesn’t judge me. I am really going to miss her. Me, who is in the Air Force and is used to people moving all of the time. But those people are young and they are supposed to move. You nailed it Pegleg, MissmovingtoTXprettyOCgirl is entrenched here. Even though I am the one who has been ready to leave the state for years, she is actually doing it. She has mega family, businesses and friends here. Even though I will miss her terribly, I know she will be back. And the girl’s trip is in September to celebrate her birthday. Yes, I will ride that bull. Do they provide helmets? Yep, she will will wear more make up (not that she needs it with that pretty china doll face) cause its a southern thing along with the big hair. We will find her though, she’ll be the only woman in flip flops in the winter!
Ah, D2, she is all that and more! OC won’t be the same. You cannot wear a helmet with your bikini on the bull btw. You will have to live large in TX.
Must be Texas!! In 1994 a close friend of mine moved out of OC. We lived in Hunt. Beach and were in a playgroup when our youngest were babies. 1994 brought a recession and they moved to Cleveland, St. Louis, Atlanta, Dallas and again now to Atlanta. We visited her family in Dallas a few years back and had a blast. We have shared Christmas and Birthday gifts all these years between she and I and our kids. In the past after they moved we traveled to vacation spots all over the country when the kids were younger to keep our friendships alive. My youngest can’t remember but the older ones do. Each of the 3 families got to choose a destination to vacation each year. Many of the choices came from what we were familiar with in the part of the country we knew. What was cool was that my close girlfriend who is originally from South Carolina chose Sanibel Island in Florida one year and another time they chose Wild Dunes in South Carolina, near Charleston. We got to experience their vacations spots and learn about different places in the US. I miss her a lot and her oldest just graduated from University of Alabama. and her younger son is now playing football at the University of Georgia. We rejoice in our children’s accomplishments and they flew out here for Lexi’s wedding. So we will be friends forever but I miss her. It is hard when friend move, especially because they are my family. She has tons of family but I don’t. Every Christmas I send gifts to Sacramento, Atlanta, Nashville, and Hawaii to those close to my heart. It is what we do and we all try to keep the connection alive. It can be done, it takes effort on both parts. Some weeks/ months you don’t hear form them but we women are able to connect with our friends as if no miles or time have separated us. That is the great thing about women in sharing our feelings, hopes and fears we get close.
Cannot wait to go visit her! TX or bust.
Remember the Alamo ! ! !
Giddy up, Cowgirl.