Want to know a sad fact about moving? All those friends who said they'd stay in touch with you, the ones you planned on still being friends with despite the distance of a few hundred miles between you?
They aren't going to stay in touch with you. Probably not the news you want to hear, I admit. But it's true. The staying-in-touch thing is immediately going to fall on your shoulders. The one who moved. Because all your friends? THEY STILL HAVE EACH OTHER. Sure, your best friend will likely stay in touch. But eventually even that might dwindle down to a few letters a year that, while telling you the details of her life, never really give you the full story. And the others? Eh. So often our friendships are built on WHO IS CLOSEST, who we can talk to the most and hang out with the most and more often than I'd like to admit it's not really about who you are at all, except that you fit the "friend" mold.
You are going to be the one calling your friends. Emailing them. Texting and IMing them. Telling them what classes you're taking and sending them pictures of your new puppy, etc etc. You will miss them with an aching feeling long after they stop missing you. And I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but one day you will be talking to one of the people you used to (and possibly still do) consider a friend. One of the people you've missed so much. And guess what?
THEY WILL LEAVE YOU FEELING MISERABLE. Because you will be all lonely for your old friends and they'll be all, oh-everything-here-is-great-and-we-are-all-such-great-friends-now-and-blah-blah-blah-sorry-nobody-misses-you-and-you-have-no-friends-because-you're-such-a-loser. Only they won't be so mean about it. But you'll get that same general feeling and you'll be all, woah. I guess we're not really friends anymore, huh? Only of course you won't say that either.
You will realize though, that all the while you have been missing your friends from back home, they've all been moving on without you and there's nothing you can do about it. And then you will think, well-that's-the-past-and-time-to-move-on-so-now-I-shall-pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps.
Except you will still miss them.
And one day maybe you will come home from your glamorous new life that really isn't that glamorous (at all) but still includes there being a Barnes and Noble within twenty minutes from home (which, trust me, more than makes up for the lack of glamour) and there will be this glowing little orange msn message on the bottom of your computer screen. And you will click on it. And it will say something completely awesome like, for instance, hey i know you're 'away' but i just wanted to say hi! i haven't talked to you in a while hope you're doing well!
And then even though your $200 Barnes and Noble gift card just came in the mail (thank you many years of Dad staying in hotels and racking up reward points), THAT will be what totally makes your day because you'll realize that the people who really matter to you have stuck around, eight hundred miles of distance between you or no.
So, uh, thanks Ash. :)