Saying Goodbye to Virginia

After a doctor's appointment and a day of rest yesterday, today I began the process of saying goodbye to Virginia. In a conversation with my brother not too long ago, he suggested that I would be glad to say goodbye to Virginia. On the contrary, I replied, I have really enjoyed my time here and will be sad to leave it. He said it was because our parents have been living in a rural area, and that this feeds my "antisocial tendencies" (not his exact words, but you get the idea). I maintain that there is a difference between being antisocial and being an introvert: if I were truly antisocial, after all, I wouldn't be planning to become a pastor. But that's a discussion for another post.

So today I went up to Harrisonburg to have lunch with a friend of mine from seminary who is in the final months of her internship in rural West Virginia. Harrisonburg is the closest urban center to where she lives, and this was her day off to run errands in the "big city". We had a good time visiting and chatting about seminary days and gossip from Gettysburg, and catching up. As we hugged good-bye, I realized that I didn't know when I might see her again, but since we are Facebook friends, it didn't seem like we were really saying good-bye.

Then I made a surprise visit to another friend who lives in the area, and we talked on his front patio while watching his 80-something landlady mow the lawn. This particular friend hadn't realized until that conversation that I most likely would not be returning to Virginia for a while, as my parents will now permanently be in Florida. While I am planning on returning here for my eventual ordination (whenever that may be--the bishop of the Montana Synod has said that when the time comes, she is okay with me having the ordination in Virginia), the time surrounding that event will be rather hectic and I don't know that I will have a quiet moment to sit down and chat face-to-face with this particular friend. But again, we're friends on Facebook, so it doesn't really feel like I'm saying goodbye.

And yet, there's something to be said for the physical, face-to-face conversations and the touch of two people, one to another, in friendship. This is what I began to say goodbye to today, not knowing when I will be able to meet these two good friends again in the near future. While I'm thankful for Facebook, since it is a good medium to keep up with my friends, I will miss their facial expressions, the sound of their laughter, and yes, their touch, as I hug them in greeting and in farewell. And this is what caused the tears to start streaming down my face as I drove back to little Nellysford this afternoon. To my two friends whom I saw today: I may not have cried when I said goodbye to you this afternoon, but trust me when I tell you I did cry later.