goodbyes...

The new year is sure bringing in a lot of changes.

One change I loathe is having friends move away. A change in jobs resulting in a change in location. And when they call or meet to discuss the move, and ask for opinions, I am tempted to say, "That's a bad move. Not the right place for you, for your career."

Not the right place? New York, Moscow and Hyderabad? At better positions and superb salaries?

That's where, three of my close friends are moving to, with their other halves. At the beginning of 2005. They don't know each other. I am sure they would have liked one another had they met. Again strikes me as strange that I never got them together considering, they are all such good and old friends of mine.

But I go on to tell them, the right thing. How they have made a great decision and should move on. Glum faces hardly look convinced. They could always come back any time they feel like. Strangely the one promise they extract out of us is, "If we go, you have to come and visit." As if their mere survival there depends on us visiting them!

And with each of them, we assure them loudly, "Of course, we will be there in six months!" And suddenly there's a little excitement at the prospect of meeting again in a different place and spending a couple of weeks together.

And so the plans are made. In between our visits there, friend moving to Russia is going to come down twice a year (at company's expense)!
Friend moving to New York is going to come down 4 times a year (twice at company's expense, and twice spending the hubby's hard earned money!)
And friend moving to Hyderabad refuses to stoop to discussing such trivial things. (I will come WHENEVER I feel like.)

So that should bring some solace to all our lonely souls.

Here we never got to meet as often as we would have liked to. Somehow work and other necessary evils bogged us down. But the thought of them moving away is a painful empty feeling. There's happiness and pride at their doing well in their careers. But there's a certain pain, that they could move away, just like that... to new lands, to make newer friends.

But again, isn't that what life is about? Moving on. About people too... you meet to part. And what remains are wonderful memories as you go on to create newer ones. It's not about giving up something or someone for others. It's about carrying everyone along, in the heart, as life takes its course. And we go on to realise our dreams. Knowing fully that the good wishes and prayers we carried along have contributed a fair bit.

Saddened and heavy though my heart is, I wish these friends of mine, the very best of life. It isn't easy for them to up-and-go but they have dared to dream. They have seen a future, successful and happy, and they are ready to work hard for it. Nobody else deserves it more.

God bless, my friends.