Good Bye Dear Friend

We had a leisurely, lackadaisical, Fourth of July weekend. It was filled with awesome food cooked by moi(Kansas City Rubbed Pork Ribs on the grill, home-made Cole Slaw, Peppered Jowl Baked Beans with Maple Syrup, Pineapple Casserole, and Pioneer Woman's Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings with home-made Vanilla Ice Cream), there was the best fireworks display ever put on by private citizens while sitting on the beach, and the weather could not have been more perfect.

We really did have a blast.

There is nothing quite like sitting in the middle of two groups of missile launching crazy people trying to out do the other. For at least an hour and a half...non-stop. I kept on begging for Hard Working Man to bring his few purchases down to the water to shoot off where it was nice and safe, but no...he wanted to shoot them off in the street...where there were cars...and the potential of getting noticed by Norfolk's finest. I am grateful to admit that they were lit off without a hitch and no arrests were made.

I found out, while we were driving the neighbor's crazy with the smell emitting from our KC Ribs on the grill, that one of my good friend's was really upset. It seems as if her husband decided he wanted his Independence on this special day and packed up all his stuff and moved out. He hadn't said anything to her...he just did it...the way a coward (and a whole lot of other choice words that are not allowed on this blog) does it. He hadn't even paid any of the bills. He just left her. He has forever more gained entrance into my "What an A$$" fan club which is truly reserved for the best of the best.

I tried my best to make her feel better, but I knew she was crushed. We sat out on the beach and I tried to use the explosions in a cathartic way to make some sense to her. I do not know whether it worked or not, but I left her that night knowing she seemed to be in a better place mentally. I have that way with people due to the fact that I have been through a few explosive situations in my own life and have survived with minimal burns.

Last night she came over and told me that she is packing her own self up today and taking her son and herself back to Kansas. A little town somewhere close to Wichita. Although I am really sad she will be leaving, I am happy for her. She needs to do this. It would be just too hard to try and start over in a place that really isn't "home" to her.

Then it hit me. I completely understood her feeling. The emotion of where we live. Why I too, want to pack up and leave this place that is gorgeous, yet elusive...giving , yet aloof. I live in a transient monstrosity. An area where people come and go, move in and move out...where roots are not grown, where natives are rare. I had become oblivious to the fact that people only come here and stay for as long as their orders allow and then they are gone. It has happened my whole life and I had grown numb to it's effects on me. One becomes scarred from really getting close to anyone because, in this city...it is a fact of life, that everyone leaves.

It repulses me to the depths of my core. I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to be free from it's grasp. I too, want to leave. I want to find my patch of America where I can grow my roots...where I can live freely in the depth of friendship and that those friendships never leave.

Today it is with a very heavy heart that I will bid a fond farewell to another "country girl" on the Chesapeake Bay...may you rest in the knowledge that you will take a little bit of me with you. I am complacent in knowing that I have an open invitation to go "Tornado Chasing" with you in the Springs to come, but rest in knowing you will always be in my heart.

Fair winds and Following Seas...my dear Genia.