Posted October 17th, 2003 by Michelle

Sean and I moved at least every two years, sometimes every year, growing up. You could say that it was my family, or fractured parts of my family, that did the moving, but ultimately every time it was Sean and I, in the same school or not, trying to live through childhood and adolescence. We had help, sometimes, and a place to lay our heads. But the true surviving was figured out at school or in the middle of the night when one of us thought we might go mad, and asked the other to talk us out of the nightmare.

There were patterns of behavior each time we moved. Sean usually stopped going to school pretty quickly, I would get involved with the wrong guy as soon as possible. At some point during our stay, we’d turn to each other and say, “What if we left right now?” and the answer would often be, “I could leave without saying goodbye.” What this meant was there was not one person we cared enough about to say goodbye the next time we left. This would change as the year or years went by; sometimes we’d want to take several of our friends with us, sometimes just a girlfriend, sometimes even a park. A place would start to be dear to us. There was Anne, there was Russ, there was Coleen and Craig, there was Ho and Brynne. There was Southard Park.

But it wasn’t exactly that we didn’t care enough about these people. More, it was that leaving was what we did, and when you learn to leave, you also learn to make quick, passionate friendships that will easily burn out before it was time to go. So there were no painful goodbyes, no sore hearts from missing our friends.

We got too good at this. Or, at least, I did. This ended for Sean when he hit college and made friends he still hires to sing for him today. And then it was walloped and sent out of town forever when Sean moved to North Carolina. All of his good friends, and there are many, he’s now known for years. He takes people with them, he keeps them, and he will know most of these people for the rest of his life.

Me? Well. My best friend I’ve known for thirty-one years. Her mother started babysitting me when I was 10 months old. My other great friend I’ve known for seven years, and perhaps only because we’ve moved three times together. And then the next closest to me is a woman I met four or five months ago. I’m not counting my new sisters, since they are stuck with me as family; I can’t help but keep them, lucky, lucky for me. But I realize that I never quite recovered from this nomadic habit. I lived in Hollywood for over two years: no one. I went to my last college for two years: not one single soul. Citrus Singers, two years: no one I stay in touch with, although I have love for several of them. High School, three years: nope. Other high school, arguably one of the most important years of my life: nope. Kansas City, a year and a half: nope, although complicated, because when my boyfriend abandoned me he took my friends. Other than my seven-year friend. Chicago, one year: nada. New York: remains to be seen. There are four people I’m holding onto tight, and they to me, and there are two others who might still be my friend in a year. Even if I keep only those four, that’s a new track record.

I did not have the college experience that my brothers did. I do, however, get to reap those benefits, since some of the best people I’ve met have been through Sean and Ian (and, therefore, Tess and Jordi, so the numbers get exponential). But as I look at another move, even one that is supposed to be temporary, I’m thinking about all of this again. This time, I want to say goodbye to everyone I love. It’s not a crowd, but it is a collective, and I’m going to do the best I can to hang on.

But I’m concerned that, in a way, I’m running again, like Sean and I did whenever things got sticky. My life is not sticky, not right now, but there are things I’ve done that, sadly, make it better if I go away. Friends who stay apart because I’m there. I’d rather not be a part of that.

But if I am running, I am also running towards possibility, to change. Maybe I running to a place I actually want to be.