easy come, easy go

Next week we're moving to Philadelphia so that Robbie can start business school. To some of you that news is coming out of nowhere probably due to the fact that I'm still sort of in denial about it and it's hard to just casually bring up in conversation. Also, I never post anything on Facebook and it seems that's how people make big announcements these days.

I understand now why our friends who have left DC keep it on the DL for the most part until right before they leave. It's just hard to say goodbye. People come and go all the time, and I'm usually sad at first about it and then life goes on—new people move in, you make new friends, and it doesn't feel as sad anymore. But at the risk of sounding totally dramatic, it feels like the end of the world for me and I'm kind of having a hard time dealing with it! Today, for example, I was thinking about how much I like our mailman and how I'm going to miss him (even though he's seen me in my bathrobe like a dozen times in the past six months), and how it's dumb that I'm going to miss the mailman because we're just another house on the route for him but the other day he had a package for us and said "This one's for Miss Rhoda!" and I was like, the mailman knows Rhoda! And now I'm tearing up thinking about the freaking mailman and wondering if it would be weird if I told him I'm going to miss him when we leave.

We've lived here for five of our six married years. We brought our baby home here. We always knew that DC was going to be a temporary stop for us, but when it's all you know as a little family it makes it hard to leave. There's also a strong possibility that we'll be back after school is over, but even then, can you ever really go back to the life you had before? Every day I can think of a hundred annoyances about this house and this city that make me happy to leave (the biggest one being that noisy Rhoda has to sleep in our living room because she's been banished from our bedroom) and yet I can't imagine living anywhere else. I can't decide if it's helpful or not that spring has been incredible so far and I am just in awe at how beautiful it is in DC right now. I guess I'm happy that DC and I are parting on good terms. Our BFFs left in fall, which makes the pain of leaving a tiny bit easier since they abandoned us first (JK, Julie!), and still the thought of making new friends all over again is like, super stressful for me. Extrovert problems, you guys.

I have lots of other irrational thoughts swimming around in my super hectic brain (such as—will I ever find a book group as good as the Capitol Hill book group? a pediatrician as chill as Dr. Wirt? midwives as magical as the ones at GW? fun crafternoon buddies??) that are preventing me from writing a fitting farewell to this fair city, but I'm sure as moving day creeps closer the thoughts will fall into place. I just needed to get some of them out before I collapse in a pile of sad moving tears.