Chipping away

Corporate suits are slowly chipping apart my network of friends. Two of them are due to slip out of my life forever next Friday.

Oh, I know. We'll have lunch.

Maybe.

Last night we gathered at the place where our group goes for last beers together. I am starting to associate the place with unwanted goodbyes and not fun and high spirits.

Then after beers a subset of us weren't really ready to go home, so we went to the Cheesecake Factory and discussed everything from being single to being married to the assertion that yes, there really is a position called the Kangaroo, and you'd better be adventurous, and bendy. But it's worth it, from the way he grins when he makes those declarations.

(Just for the record, no, he wasn't suggesting that little old ME go try it... he was telling our Single Guy That Everyone Wants to Fix Up that he should go find a nice Aussie girl. )

The other friend who's leaving is adamant that she doesn't want a party. Nope. Not my choice to be shoved out of my job, and I don't feel like celebrating my departure, thank you. She doesn't get that it wouldn't be so much for her, but partly for us. A last dinner full of laughter to look back on, remembering who hit on the waiter and so on. (Again, ...well, not really me).

But it's the farewell hugs at the end of the evening, before we all drift off to our cars, that she'll miss. That we'll miss.