New

This past weekend I finally moved into my new apartment, and that's when it really hit me.

I'm moving to LA.

I've told most of my friends and family back home that I'm "staying" in CA where I "went to school." But really, I'm not. My friends are all within a "comfortable" LA driving distance (read: under 2 hours) but there's no one around to grab dinner with after work, or go out for drinks with on the weekend. I'm completely on my own out here.

I've always been the independent kind of girl who loved the thrill and adventure of picking up and moving somewhere new - I moved to a college a state away where I knew NO ONE for a reason. But I'm starting to realize the older I get that I need the stability of my friends and family close by. I'd love to go out and explore my new city, but only with the comfort of coming home to my best friend or seeing my boyfriend each night for dinner.

This is going to be the kind of growing experience I'll lecture my kid's about when I get older.

Of course, I'm intent on slowly manipulating my friends to get closer and closer. Twixter Two will be moving up North in just a few short weeks and we'll live closer than we have since high school. The next challenge will be to get the boyfriend to move up North after he graduates in December, and then I'll move on to my next victim. ;)

It's time I start making a new life of my own, but it's hard to leave the close-knit college life I spent four years deeply committed to. Sometimes it seems that's all that life is - a constant cycle of making new friends, and leaving the old. I'm ready for the time where friends are friends - regardless of what stage of life we're in.

And as cheesy as it is, an old song from my girl scout days starts ringing through my mind:
"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold."