"You Are the Most Terrible Awesome Person in the World"

It shouldn't be something that makes me feel proud. Really- it shouldn't. Who wants to be terrible? Awesome, yes- that's what makes me proud-- but terrible? No. But a beloved friend said this to me recently, tears in her lovely dark eyes.
"You are the most terrible awesome person in the world. I can't believe you are leaving." And I thought- crap. I am. I am leaving all these phenomenal people who I adore and- I am always surprised to find- adore me right back.
So many amazing souls of all ages who have touched my life and the lives of my children and I wonder, "Woah! This is going to be seriously burly." And it is.
Leaving those you love and have formed a community of heart with, isn't something that is ever easy. It's what makes people nostalgic- "Remember when we all lived in that little neighborhood and the kids were little and we all drank tea and the kids ran around?" or "Remember when we all went to that park and there was concert and we all danced for hours?" or "Do you remember when we had that freak snow storm and you showed up on the doorstep and we made pancakes and smoothies and then played in that blessing of snow that shut down the whole city?"

This just makes you want to bawl- crumple into a ball and rock back and forth while your heart cries itself out. Well, that's what it's like to me, at least.
And I think, "Oh god, what if I can't make friends?" and "Oh no, what if I'm judged before they know me?" and then I look at my children and wonder "Will they find good friends? The kind that know you- the kind that are of your clan?"
And I don't have any definitive answers but everyone says "You'll find friends. They'll get to know you." and I know that we will. New people, new friends, old spirits that life leads us to connect with after so many life times. They all await us along the way. And I worry that my friends here will think they are replaceable- that they worry I will forget or lose touch and I think "Of course not- because you will move to. That piece of you that I hold in my heart, that's going with me and you get to live there too- a little bit of you."

They will. And there will be visits and there will be more laughter and more tears and more joy and more sadness because that is the balance of the world- the exquisite sensation of both sides of feeling. And it will be this way because it is always this way and has always been this way. The joy, the sadness, the tears and the laughter. Old and new- you can't have one without the other because in the end this is life. Period.