Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes

I've never handled change particuarly well, especially change over which I have no control.  I'm a creature of habit, as they say, and I don't like it when something happens that changes my routine.  I also tend to be somewhat nostalgic, which I think makes change more difficult for me to easily accept. 

The topic of change (and my reaction to it) has been on my mind lately, thanks to a couple of recent events that occurred. 

La Fiesta, a mexican restaurant on Belmont Boulevard that J.P. and I discovered closed last week, without any advance notice.  Thankfully, he and I just been there for dinner Thursday night, before it closed the following Monday.  J.P. and started going there last spring on nights when Jude played tennis.  It was the first restaurant he and I frequented on a regular basis.  The staff there knew us, because we were there so often, and they really doted on J.P.  Also, he was really comfortable there and, as a result, enjoying running around and playing, most nights, after we finished dinner.  It makes me sad to think we won't be able to have dinner at La Fiesta anymore.

A more significant change, in the scheme of things, is that our friends, Ann Marie and Rob Elliott (and their daughter, Ayden) are moving.  They live a block away from us and we've spend a fair amount of time together the last 2 + years, as J.P. and Ayden are about a month apart in age.  Ann Marie and Rob are about our age and Ayden is their first child, something Jude and I have in common with them.  Many, many nights after dinner, Jude, J.P. and I would stroll (as J.P. got older we'd walk) down to their house and talk with them, as the kids played on Ayden's swingset.

At dinner at their house one night, a few months ago, Ann Marie casually mentioned she and Rob had looked at a couple of houses, just for fun.  I immediately knew that meant they would be moving, because they're "doers."  They don't talk about doing things - they just do them (I wish I were more like that).  Sure enough, a month or so ago, I stopped by to pick up J.P. after Ann Marie had babysat for him while Jude and I were at a Renewal House event.  Somewhat regretfully, Ann Marie told me they had bought a house in Forest Hills, an expensive neighborhood in a nice part of town 10 or 15 miles from where we live now.

As I processsed the news that they were moving, I experienced a myriad of emotions.  I wasn't surprised, not really.  Certainly, I was sad and more than a bit nostalgic, realizing that J.P. and Ayden wouldn't have the opportunity to grow up together as toddlers, then young children.  Selfishly and irrationally, I was a little angry, almost feeling like their decision to move to Forest Hills was a rejection of our neighborhood.  On one level, I realized and understood that Ann Marie and Rob have to do what's best for their family.  On another level, I couldn't help but feel like they were abandoning us (which, of course, isn't fair).  A range of conflicting emotions, really all over the place.

Of course, their house sold to the first person that looked at it, before it even went on the market.  They'll be gone by the end of the month, maybe as soon as this weekend, according to Rob.  Sure, we'll all give lip service to the idea that we'll still get together, that we'll still see each other.  Realistically, thought, I don't think that will happen.  We'll drift apart and in all likelihood, after a short while, we won't see them anymore which makes me sad.

Life is about change, though.  People (and families) come in and out of your life and you mark certain periods of your life by the friends you had and the people you spent time with on a regular basis.  Maybe, on a rare occasion years later, you see them and you're reminded of that period of time in your life when you were in each other's orbit, when you (and your children) were younger and life was, well, different.  That's just the way it goes.