The Big Move

This was my last weekend with my best friend. She's moving to Arizona where she will live with her sister briefly and set up a new life in a place that's hopefully filled with more professional possibilities and new soul-friends waiting to meet her.

I'm famously good at keeping in touch with phone, e-mail, texts, letters. But there's no replacement for being near someone, just a phone call away from a lunch date or an inpromtu walk on the beach. I'm going to miss her terribly.

She's caught between two worlds now, still in disbelief about where fate is taking her and finding it hard to say goodbye. Yet, she feels that our town is an old item in the refrigerator--the expiration date has long since passed.

Change is inevitable and inevitably hard. Even harder when it seems to lead us by the hand without the element of choice.

When I was in eleventh grade, my parents announced we were moving to Florida after the school year was over. And after getting over the incredible loss, disappointment, shock, where-has-my-world-gone feeling, I realized that no matter where I was, I would be the same person. At the same time, I was suddenly anonymous. I could reinvent myself if I wanted. With that came enormous excitement, freedom and strangely, peace once I came to terms with it.

It wasn't an easy year for me. And no doubt the big move had some negative effects. But for whatever reason, it's what was in the cards. And I have to believe it was for a reason. We don't know everything. And for one, I have faith that when the element of choice is taken away from us, something greater is guiding us.

In this way, I believe that my friend is being led to Arizona. Sure, her level of success and happiness there will largely depend on what she builds for herself. But I rest in the comfort of feeling that none of us is alone. When we feel the hour is darkest, we're secretly being looked after and guided just where we need to be.