Goodbye

Ahhh, Goodbyes...

Don't we all hate them?

I feel like thats all I ever do these days though. Everyone says, "its part of being in the military," but I don't know if that actually helps.

After all, deployments are "just a part of the military," as well, and they still suck big-time!

When we found out that we'd be moving here to the Washington DC area, I was SO excited that we'd be here for at least 4 years. That meant NO goodbyes for 4 glorious years!!

Or so I thought. Foolishly.

Just because I am not going anywhere doesn't mean my friends don't leave. I have been here just shy of a year and have already had to say goodbye to one amazing friend. At the end of the summer, I will say good-bye to three more great friends from church. I have one other friend who may or may not leave in October...

Its horrible. I still think of my Ft. Bragg friends all the time. I wonder what they're doing. Seeing pictures on facebook of their families in their homes doing things just like they did when I was there leaves me sad. I wish I could be there with them.

Sure, the internet is great. I get to see what everyone is up to and see their kids growing bigger and bigger, but it is never the same. Never.

My little C summed it up for D pretty well when his first ever best friend was about to move across the country. I tried to sugar coat it and tell him his friend was "moving to a new house far away...too far for us to go over and play."

C must have gotten frustrated with the way I was saying it because she told her brother, "He is moving away. You will NEVER see him again!"

It makes me tear up to type that because in the bottom of my heart, I know she is right. She hasn't seen her sweet friends from Ft. Bragg since we left a year ago. I can recall crying like a baby when I said goodbye to my friends there as well. As B drove away from my one friend's house, I cried in the passenger seat. C was bawling in the back. My dear friend was on her front porch waving...and crying just as hard as me. It was pretty much just like you would picture it in a movie.

Unless the Lord brings us back together, we may never see them again. (Oddly enough, He actually DID do that for me and one of my friends from Ft. Bragg! She lives about 5 minutes away from me up here near DC - crazy!)

All the moving, and saying goodbye has made every goodbye that much harder. I just hate them.

I couldn't have been prepared for how my sister and I would react when we parted last October when she came to visit. I never thought I'd be SO distraught to say goodbye to her. She and I cried. A lot.

Then again when we left Atlanta last month, more tears between my sister and me. I can't explain it. We live so far apart. Her 3 month old (at the time) will be 10 months old when I see him again. I hate that so much.

Even when my sister-in-law left last week. I was nice and strong as we said goodbye and gave hugs and kisses. My kids and I went outside to wave as they drove off and then as we walked back inside, I was overcome with sadness once again. The tears fell and it was all I could do to hide them from my kids.

I think, with regards to my family, the goodbyes are so hard because we have to go in such huge intervals in seeing each other. I won't see my family again until Christmas. We may even have seen snow here in DC by then. This 92 degree weather makes snow seem REALLY far off. That makes me so sad. It makes me feel so alone.

This has been on my mind a lot lately because of my friends from church leaving so soon. I dread those last hugs.

Here is D with his first-ever best friend on the day we said goodbye.

And C with her Ft. Bragg girlfriends. She still talks about these girls a year after saying goodbye.