Old Friends New Friends

One of our friends recently visited from Virginia and said, “I have to admit we’re feeling a little abandoned. It’s like you’re so happy here that you’ve forgotten all of us at home in Virginia.”

Oh, no.

That, my friends, is not true.

Never, ever will we forget you, and never will you be replaced.

While life in Utah is good so far, I’ve definitely been homesick for old friends.

(If you’ve been a follower of my blog, you’ve read several other posts on how I value my friends. Here, here and here.)

We are making room for new friends because we’re social people, and we love friends.

But new friends and old friends are not the same.

Small talk is the soup du jour when making new friends because we haven’t had time to share experiences and create memories with each other.

So, for now, we are talking a lot about where are are from,  what we do, how many kids we have, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. This is all good.

We are in the land of the friendliest, nicest, most welcoming people in the world.

Utahns are nothing if not nice and friendly.

But being friendly is different that being friends.

Having people be nice to me is different than having friends who know me — friends who know my family, my history, my sense of humor, my interests, and well, my everything.

So, trust me when I say, we miss you. We really miss you.

But, we love being near our families and Utah friends — new and old. That is the real bonus.

Last week, I told Doug I felt like it was time to go home to Virginia.

It still feels a little bit like we’re on vacation and it’s almost time to leave.

Being residents here is very different that being visitors.

We are residents now.

We are not on vacation like every other time for the last 30-plus years.

We have Utah driver’s licenses. We’re registered to vote in Utah.

Doug even has Utah license plates on his car. (I’m holding on to my Virginia plates for a little longer.)

We are Utahns.

I never thought I’d be saying that.

Doug had an epiphany the other day and said, “It just hit me — I’m a Utah Mormon!”

Yes, we are both Utah Mormons. And that’s okay.

We used to wonder why people would leave Virginia to live in Utah.

We couldn’t fathom it.

Now we are the people others can’t fathom.

What can we say? Things change. (See this blog on change.)

And, we might be eating a little crow…a little humble pie because after only a month here, we are impressed with Utah.

We’re astounded by the beauty all around us and we’ve met some wonderful people.

We definitely miss our friends and the familiarity of a place that was home for so many years.

But, change is good — challenging, and a little uncomfortable at times — but good.

Like Mrs. Hughes said in Downton Abbey, “There’s no shame in feeling homesick. It means you came from a good home.”

And there’s no shame in missing old friends. It means they’re good ones.