no anchor

I walked up to her door to pick S up. She was on the phone for work so I sat down and looked around her living room, a living room I knew almost as well as my own. For the past several years we had traded living rooms. Not really traded, just hung out in both.

I love hers. Cheerful, girly, well decorated. It always seemed so much more grown-up than mine. Hers with a painting her sister had done prominently displayed over the fireplace. Mine with my own photography printed as large as I could on my home printer. Hers with a nice new flat-panel tv, mine with a decade old behemoth. Hers with complementary furniture, mine with my sister's chair that matches nothing else in my entire house.

We'd spent countless nights laughing on each other's hardwood floors and couches. Yoga poses gone awry were sometimes the cause, but usually it was simply the little pieces of life that brought out the giggling.

Tonight we walked a few blocks to dinner. Catching up, as she'd been out of town a bit this summer, and when she happened to be here, those were the few times I was not.

I learned she had sold her house. I knew this was coming, but part of me hoped it would stay on the market much longer. I knew I should be happy she got her asking price so quickly. Happy for her and happy for me. It bodes well for the value in mine.

For now she's not moving that far away. But far enough. Far enough that it will mean the end of walking to dinner together. The end of swapping living rooms for yoga, of walking to the bars for a drink. The end of walking TheDog around the park.

And I know that now she really has nothing keeping her here at all. She could decide to pick up tomorrow and move miles or states away.

Her new job is portable. Without her house, she has no anchor here. I envy that, sometimes. Sometimes I wish I could pick up and leave, yet have the security of a job to take with me. But then I know I would miss my friends, my family, the mountains.

So, for now I will enjoy whatever time S and I can find to get together, with our busy lives. And I will secretly hope that those things that keep me here, will keep her here as well.