This is the big PCS move year in Hawaii. Our entire street has nearly emptied. Most of my friends have already packed and flown.
There are just a handful of us left, all with only a year or less to go before our boxes are shipped too. And as new families move in around us, and jumpstart their adventures in this new duty station, it’s terrible to admit, I’m just not interested.
And I’m not alone.
My friend Meg turned to me one day and sighed, “I just don’t want to make new friends that I’m going to leave again. I’m done here.”
At PCS time everyone focuses on how tough the transition is for military kids. Turns out, the move is tough on grownups too.
Every social organization we belong to has practically turned over its entire membership. We have new neighbors in every direction. We didn’t even invite friends over for a 4th of July barbecue because frankly, there was no one left to invite.
Normally, when we are new to an area our family jumps in with both feet and chats up anyone who will listen until we’ve filled our dance cards with a roster of great friends.
Now, as we eyeball the closets that need cleaned, the four years worth of stuff that needs organized and mentally catalog all the tasks that need completed in the coming months before we can move on, making time to grow and foster new friendships just seems, exhausting. Self-defeating, perhaps, but exhausting.
So, for now, the last of us still standing on this rock in the Pacific will band together between packing and prepping to blow to the four corners of the world.
I’ll nod and smile at my new neighbors and make polite chit chat at school drop-off. They will be nice, I’m certain, and at some point I’m also certain that I’ll wish we were better friends. And then I’ll rush off to pack and organize yet another closet and remember just what direction we’re headed: outbound.
To my dear future friends, I can’t wait to see you. It’s going to be a long couple of lonely months.
