Honestly, now.

It’ll start soon.  The mass exodus of my friends.  Chris is the first to go and he’s probably not coming back.  After that, it’s Rachel, Carina, and Mary.  Rachel might come back after a few months and both Carina and Mary are coming back after two weeks.  But still, I’m not terribly happy about all of this leaving nonsense.  I had a really good conversation with Mary.  She said something like this, “You know, it’s great coming here because you get to meet people from all over.  But then it stinks because after this, we all won’t be together anymore.”  (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)  Rachel and Chris had the idea of everyone just sticking together and traveling around the world for a while.   We’ve done a good job of finding people to make friends out of and then settling into a weird sort of family.  These are the people that I’m close to. Granted, others have left (I’m thinking of Mike and Drew) and I miss them.  A lot.  But this little core group have been the ones that I’ve gotten the most close to. 

It seems like I’m just discovering what truly wonderful friends I have.  I’m just figuring out how lucky I am.  And the clock is ticking.

This appears to be a theme, as of late.  When I was in the States, I discovered two people that I really like.  One of them is Qing, who I finally sat down and talk with and we had a great time.  The other is my nephew, who didn’t remember me.  The bright side, he’s a very cool little person and I look forward to watching him grow.  But again, about the time we started getting along well was about the same time that I had to leave. 

It’s frustrating, but it has got me thinking.  There’s so many things that are on my list of “stuff to do.”  Mary, Chris, and I were going to be silly and make a zombie movie.  Rachel wants to have a puppet show.  I want to have a Thanksgiving dinner at my place. 

 Moral of the story: Less talking, more doing.  Less thinking, more appreciating.  Carpe diem and all that kinda stuff.

(Why is it the stuff I figure out is so painful obvious once I see it?)