E and I went for a walk around the neighborhood this afternoon while S mowed the lawn (well, as much as he could before it started raining). We like to go for walks when it’s warm and dry enough, and most of the neighbors know us by sight, if not more personally. It took a long time, but now most will at least wave when we go by, and there are several that will stop and chat, especially our immediate neighbors.
Well, as we were closing in on home, one of those neighbors was driving by. She stopped and rolled down the window and said, “I hear you’re PCSing soon.” Her husband retired as a military doctor, so she’s familiar with the vernacular. We chatted a bit, and she asked where we would be going. I gave her the spiel about it not being a sure thing, where we were hoping to go, and when S thinks we might hear something. She said something really nice about letting them know when we were moving on so we could have a going away block party.
And it all just reminded me that even though I hate the place, we’ve made some friends here. It almost feels unfair to want to leave when we’ll be saying goodbye to people who have become our friends. It seems mean to hope to no longer get to see them because of a new geographical location, even though that’s just a horrible side effect of a prescription that will make me a happier person (theoretically). And I hope they don’t see it that way, because that’s not really what it’s about…
This is something I worry about.
