... (or a Coastie) today! If you do, you might see fireworks.

At least, that's what he told me 8 years ago. It was true, right??? Wait...

Since I have nothing better to do than to stand here in my kitchen, topless, because I'm annoyed that I have to get the house ready for all the in-laws about to inundate me - I'm rebelling, if you can't tell - I will transcribe here for you, in all it's glory, and without a single edit, a poem I wrote when I was a teenager.

Enjoy.

Hey! Look up! See that?

I guess you can't see.

I forgot. You're five hundred and three!

So much older, much more mature,

I'm so young,

of that I'm sure.

My friend Barney told me, "Just imagine!"

Others say, "Be real."

Which is the right choice?

Which is the better deal?

I know I want to see,

but does seeing make me blind?

And if I go find knowledge,

would I like what I will find?

So, will I go seek fortune,

or will I seek out fame?

I've already decided that these both

will bring me shame.

What do I want to do with my life?

How shall I spend my time?

By George, I've got it!

I'll live a life of crime!

I've moved a lot in my lifetime. Not just small, across the town moves. I was born in Laguna Hills, CA. My mother tells stories of lying on the roof watching as the Blue Angels practiced their air stunts close to our house and of splashing water as small earthquakes shook us in the bathtub. My parents were in the ministry at the time. I believe they were involved in Campus Crusade for Christ. At any rate, when I was 1, we moved to Houston, TX.

From TX, I hear stories of playing with MLB players and their families because my dad was the chaplain for the Houston Astros. One of the favorite stories to tell was of the first big screen tv we'd seen, and it was at Nolan Ryan's house (we were there, I'm guessing, for the '81-'82 season). I obviously don't remember that. Or CA. My mother hated Houston more than any other place she'd ever lived, or has lived since (I agree with her sentiment now as an adult who spent the last 4 years outside Beaumont TX which is an hour and a half away from Houston), and after one baseball season, we moved to Kentucky.

My first memories are of Kentucky. They are more like memories of scenes, I was still very young. I remember grassy hills, mostly. A flash of a memory of a tricycle. Of older sisters riding down a hill on their bikes. When I was 4, we moved again. To Jacksonville, FL.

I remember almost everything about Jacksonville. From finding that infamous shoulder mole for the first time with my dad, to my first "boyfriend." Even then, I was the faithful type. We were true to each other all through kindergarten and first grade. We planned to grow up and marry each other. We held hands. We were never, ever going to kiss, kissing was GROSS. We took tons of teasing from my older sisters and his older brothers. And, in the middle of first grade, we had to move again. He rode his bike over to my house that day. As the remainder of our things were packed up on the truck, we sat in the grass in the front yard and held hands. Watching. I don't remember saying much, either of us. The time came, and with the rest of my family, I got in our van. As we drove away, I turned around backwards in my seat waving goodbye to him out of the back window. He sat on his bike alone in the street. And then, we turned a corner, and he was gone. We moved to Alabama.

We lived in Alabama from January '87 until summer '92. We moved to south Georgia. I was 12. I was already on my 6th move.

We stayed in south Georgia until around '98. The year I graduated high school. We moved to west Georgia, closer to Atlanta.

I went to college there. My father passed away there, in 2001. And in 2002, I graduated from college. I had a job waiting for me. It was an adventurous job. All I had was a plane ticket, a (very full) suitcase, and a piece of paper with the address of the hospital I'd work at, the manager to call when I landed, and an address of the apartment they were giving me. I boarded that plane, and I moved to Boston, MA on my own. Not knowing anything about where I was going. But ready to fly on my own.

I stayed in Boston for 9 months. It was the most changing 9 months of my life. I moved, at the end of my contract, back home to Georgia to recover.

After my sabbatical was over, I got a new job. It probably isn't a surprise to some of you where I chose to be. I found a job at a beach hospital. Yes, that was my criteria. An Atlantic Ocean beach hospital. I moved to Jacksonville, FL. It's where I met Josh. It's where Ava and Isaiah were born. And, after some years there, we moved with Josh to fuckin' Texas.

4 years of abandonment later..... a few weeks ago, we moved to coastal North Carolina. It's a much better situation.

So how many moves is that? I have moving experience. You get what I'm laying down? Now you know my history, if you didn't know all of it (or any of it) before. I know what it's like to physically move. All the ins and outs of it. That includes what it does to people and to relationships.

And this is the crux of the picture I'm painting. When a move is looming, friends, even friends you thought were close friends, do one of two things. They either relax into the transition, knowing that goodbyes are not forever and they embrace you as you make plans together. Or...

They pull away.

They don't know how to deal with it. They can't deal with their own feelings in it. Their own fears. Their own vulnerabilities. And in the fear of losing friendship and feeling loss, they CAUSE the friendship to break.

How does it break? They pull away so strongly out of what they think is "protection" of themselves. They find other "friends" immediately. These are replacement friends, and are often shallow relationships that serve as a distraction in order to numb themselves.

Does anyone see where I'm going with this?

All of these things happened to us when we moved from Texas. When we moved, no one gave a flying fuck. We got no goodbyes. Not a single one. Not from the friend I'd considered like a sister. She turned completely heinous. And has still not said one word.

There are some changes that we can't stop. I couldn't stop the fact that we were moving to North Carolina - we had military orders. Hell, I didn't want to. Texas was death to me as it was.

Whether we can stop the Xangapocalypse remains to be seen. But we can't stop what has already occurred, and that's the mass exodus. I cannot believe that the place where xangans have mostly gathered is facebook. Facebook, the anti-Xanga. The place that is structured to be a popularity contest. Where you give one liners. Where if your post is more than like 3 sentences, most won't read it. How could a bunch of bloggers accept such a poor (non) substitute to a blogging platform?? I'll stop my facebook feelings there, you all know it. And you know I will not follow you. If you have chosen that as your network, you already know you have chosen to walk away from me.

That's where I'm going with this. When a move is looming, friends, even friends you thought were close friends, do one of two things. They either relax into the transition, knowing that goodbyes are not forever and they embrace you as you make plans together. Or... they pull away.

I'm disgusted, and more than that, I'm hurt. I'm hurt that while you abandoned ship, you didn't look back to see if I even had a life vest.

I'm the kind of friend who embraces, accepting the transition while making plans together. How many of you did that with me? How many of you went ahead and jumped? You broke away and found a new shallow friend to distract you in order to numb yourself from the real change.

The xangapocalypse IS exactly like physically moving. It has hurt friendships and relationships in exactly the same way. Online, in real life, it still hurts to be abandoned.