Goodbye - Part 2

Goodbye. It's just one of those words. It can elicit sadness, relief, and even denial depending on the circumstance. I've been saying a lot of goodbyes lately, and I use their frequency as a barometer to measure the change taking place in my life. My latest goodbye was to one of my best friends who is moving to LA to pursue his dreams. I've known and been friends with Heath since I was 6 years old. He was in my first grade class. I slept over his house almost every weekend when I was a kid. We went to every Hebrew School class together, no matter how much we hated it. Outside of my family, I've known him longer than any other person on this planet. We went to dinner Friday night, just the 2 of us, and talked about life for a few hours. Both of our lives are drastically changing, and it was refreshing to share a deep conversation with him, especially when these conversations seem to come up less and less frequently due to life's ever growing demands.

If I were to run down a list of some of my best friends in this world, I would tell you they live in Philly, NYC, Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh, DC, Kansas City, and State College. At one point or another, I lived with or near all of them, which means at one point or another, I've had to say goodbye. It's tough knowing things will never be the same. We become accustomed to our lives and get comfortable. No matter how much it doesn't make sense, we tend to think things will remain the same - until they don't. Yet we move on, we persevere, and we become accustomed to a new normal that hopefully fulfills and enriches our lives.

I think back to the next to last scene in The Sandlot (yes, the baseball movie from 1993 which is one of my childhood favorites). Adult Scotty is recounting all of the kids on the team and how gradually they all moved away from their small town. When they moved away, the Sandlot was still there - the indelible legacy they all left behind. It's not so different when the people who we care most about move out of or take a diminished role in our lives. We take a small part of them, sometimes without even realizing it, and that becomes part of our own personality. When you surround yourself with incredible people, you tend to get great results, and I've been blessed to have some amazing friends over the course of my life. I've had to say goodbye to most of them, but they're all still a huge part of me, no matter the distance, and a major reason I am who I am today.

When I think back on my relationship with Heath, I keep coming back to an old picture of us. We were in 3rd grade and it was the night of our winter concert - one of those events the school makes up so parents can be proud of their kids for something they genuinely have no talent in (singing). The theme that year was Grease, and Heath and I were dressed up in tucked in t-shirts and jeans with our hair slicked back. I look back on that picture and think about everything that has happened since then, literally a lifetime of memories together, and I realize how lucky I am. Not many people have 1 friend like Heath, I have many. So while it may be goodbye for now, no distance can shatter a 20 year bond formed through a lifetime of shared memories.

Kaps

Song of the Day: Brand New - Jesus Christ