Miss Button Bumbles Away

This week, one of my best friends left Tucson. Miss Button is living in a new place and a new state and she's going to be gone for a long time. In fact, she and I may never live in the same place again.

It takes a while for these things to become real for me. I know intellectually that she's gone. I know that that outing to SkyBar with a group of her close friends and a Tucson monsoon crackling in the distance was the last such a one for a while (at least until she visits for Christmas). But it just hasn't really sunk in yet that she's gone. In fact, even as I was dropping her off after that last outing, I forgot even to give her hug. Of course she didn't need a hug. Where was she going anyway? (don't worry; she didn't forget she was leaving the next day, and reminded me. She's cool like that. I'm the asshole.)

And she isn't really going away. This friendship was not some fledgling one. Its a fine, stout, hearty friendship, based on shared experiences and shared interests: road trips and trans-Atlantic flights, dancing and singing, learning and teaching, break-ups and hook-ups (ok, not many of those), and all of the other things that make a friend one of the best. So I know we'll keep in touch. I'll make it a priority and I know she will too. I'm excited to go visit her in her new habitat and to hear about all of the amazing things she'll do. 

It took me a while to figure all of that out; that good friends don't really ever go away, even if you do your best to disappear. I have a bad habit of disappearing, and my best friends have always found a way to find me. As I get older, I realize that that's pretty much a bullshit way of being a friend and I'm getting better (I hope) about staying in touch and keeping the people who are really important to me in my life somehow.

But as the realities sink in, I know it won't be the same. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that life plunks us both down somewhere in the vicinity of each other....and in the meantime, well, frequent flyer miles are a beautiful thing.

Bon voyage, mon amie! Bonam fortunam tibi!