That Time of Year

Ann Arbor is such a great city to live in. It has pretty decent shopping, good restaurants, tons of really nice parks and awesome thrift stores. I would want to live here forever if I could just reduce the amount of time we have to spend indoors from 7-8 months out of the year to just one or two. It would also be great to transplant some family members here. But one of the hardest parts about living here is all the people that you have to say goodbye to every spring. Pretty much everyone I have ever met here comes to Ann Arbor for school. Sometimes that means 2-3 years for an MBA or law school, or 4-5 years for a residency or dental school, or 5+ years for a PhD. When Spring rolls around, many of them graduate and move out of state. Some just leave for the summer for an internship and the rest spend a lot of the summer on vacations or travels to see the family members that they haven't seen for the whole previous year. And then there's me. I'm now on my tenth year of "staying behind" while everyone moves on to greener pastures. Quite frankly, it sucks. I try not to get too attached to them, especially the MBA's or law school friends (they only stick around for 2 years, like I mentioned) but somehow they all work themselves into a little spot on my radar screen and it always feels really lonely after they're gone. The worst part is going to Relief Society and looking around to discover that you're now attending with only 7 people and 3 of them are in the presidency. This is especially disconcerting when you're used to being packed in like sardines. So I'm glad I've got a little group of friends who have been here for many if not all of the past ten years. But even for some of them, their time is drawing nigh. Goodbyes are extremely hard for me and I'm getting tired of doing them, but I'm glad that I've gotten to know so many awesome people in the meantime who will always be lifetime friends. And thank goodness for blogs so that we can always keep tabs on each other!