Leaving friends behind, however, has been heartbreaking. I was doing fine at home today until going on Facebook and reading all the good-bye messages. Now I’m a mess again.
I’ve always had good friends wherever I’ve gone, but never before had I had such a large network of such good friends. Friends made that first evening at Giulio’s house and thereafter. The architect crowd. Riccardo’s high school friends, Davide and Umberto and Stefano and Elisa, whom I became so fond of these past two years. Co-workers from Anglo American, both new ones and old ones. Even students–one of my last classes, an upper-intermediate one, was made up of four girls with whom I had so much fun with that I’m sure they could have become good friends had I stayed longer.
In a way, that’s the saddest part of all–leaving friends whom you’re sure you would have become even closer to over time.
On Monday night I had a lovely evening with some co-workers from Anglo American. And on Tuesday night there was a party at Giulio’s house, where it all began. It’s too bad that I was hardly able to enjoy it for the knots in my stomach and the lump in my throat (part of which may have been anxiety for the upcoming “Cat on a Plane!” adventure). But it was so nice to see everyone one last time, to hug them goodbye and to simply realize that they’re there.
1400 days ago, nearly to the day, a new friend-acquaintance of mine said that he was invited by a Bolognese guy he barely knew to a dinner party of his friend way out in the countryside, and did we want to come along? We were highly skeptical, and not particularly hungry. But I said, “You know, I bet if we go, we’ll be really glad we did.”
And how.
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