First Farewells

When outside stresses mount too high and the blogging community gets too weird, it is time to internalize, move along and get back to writing blog posts like nothing is wrong.

Our move to our first post is quickly arriving despite my best efforts to live in denial. This past weekend did a little to make the realization set in some.

I had my first "farewell."

I decorated the farewell with quotation marks because of course, it isn't real. I'll see my little sister again, but the next time I see her will either be in Mexico or while I'm visiting from Mexico.

Such faux farewells elicit recollections of saying good-bye to high school friends as we moved off to our separate campuses. Yes, we'll see each other again during breaks, but there is the acknowledgement that when we do meet again, we are going to be different people. Other than newly found book knowledge, we also gain new life experiences which changed our sophomoric high-school view of the world.

This summer, I'll have another life-changing experience, obviously, as me move southwest. The next time I see my little sister, I'll be different. I'll likely be tanner and balder, but I'll also have new life experiences from which to draw that probably will change my opinions and way of thinking.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention why my sister came to D.C. over the weekend in the first place.

Because we are moving to Hermosillo this summer, I'll be in a foreign place far from family and my closest friends when I turn 30.

So between that little fact and that I got Natalie with a surprise party for her A-100 swearing-in ceremony, Natalie threw me a surprise 30th birthday party.

Given my birthday is still a ways off, I definitely did not see this coming, and as I climbed into the party bus, it took me a few seconds as the word "surprise" registered and I saw a motley group of familiar faces. And then I proceeded to drink myself stupid and behave in a manner I don't care to recount, so thank you to all who encouraged this ghastly performance, and to my little sister for coming down from Boston and, of course, to my loving wife for putting it altogether.