Leaving Friends Behind

During the weeks leading up to our departure, I tried to rationalize with myself and my daughter that moving in this day and age is different from moving when I was little. I mean, with texting and email only a click away, responses can be received almost instantaneously.

Not to mention, the face to face phone internet calls that Skype provides--which, when I was a child, was once just an idea in a "what will the future be like" paragraph that every grammar school teacher made their students write.

Surely, the distance won't make that much of a difference. How wrong I was.

For those left behind, their lives and routines stay the same. Of course they miss us, but their environment stays familiar.

To the mover, everything is new, unstable. Distance brings loneliness and isolation. Fears the next text or email may be one too many and we've become a needy annoyance to those whose everyday lives we still want to be part of.

So, here is the tribute to those we've left behind. We love and miss you and think about you often. Please don't forget us.

Lucy's Best Friend and Angles Game Good Luck Charm, Jill Farmer: 2011 Season

My Writing Partners in Crime (not really...in Children's Lit)
SCBWI Agents' Day May 2010 in Newport Beach, CA

Stephanie Jefferson (http://stephaniejefferson.com/), Rilla Jaggia (http://www.rillart.com/, and Nancy O'Connor, middle grade author and winner of several picture book contests