When Life Seems to be Moving on Without You

We sat at a dim, candle-lined bar top, her hands wrapped around a lemonade cocktail, mine a glass of red wine. It was one of our last nights in Nashville before Christmas and she kept dropping hints about moving. I kept brushing them off with insensitive remarks about how she would never move unless I got married or she was having a life crisis, in full denial of the possibility that she might actually be serious. At some point between bites of truffle fries, though, her face did the thing it does when it is telling me that she is no longer setting me up for punchlines, but asking me to really listen. The laughter stopped; our voices grew quieter; a pit at the center of my stomach formed. 

“Where will you move to?”

“Phoenix.”

“When?”

“By the end of next year.”

I held my tears back for as long as I could in the middle of that beloved restaurant, until they inevitably made their escape down the sides of my cheeks. Ally and I have been roommates for six years. We’ve lived in our current apartment for five. She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. As far as I’ve been concerned, it was ‘Till Marriage Do Us Part. The ending of us being roommates would play out like the episode of Friends where Chandler moves in with Monica and Rachel has to move out. We would fight over candle sticks we can’t remember who bought and cry about having to live with a BOY. And even then, we would still reside down the road from each other, spending afternoons working at our favorite coffee shops and evenings splitting pitchers of margaritas at Cinco De Mayo. 

I cried silently as we took the long way home that night, driving through Belle Meade to admire the mansions clad in Christmas decor, families tucked safely away inside. Taylor Swift dropped her second surprise album of the year two hours later, and I laid in my bed, allowing “‘Tis The Damn Season” to embellish every ounce of my grief.

I don’t do well with change.

When I was a kid, I used to cry coming home from camp long after it was appropriate to. I would sit on my bedroom floor and reread notes from fellow campers I met a week prior, plunging into a deep sadness that it was unlikely I would ever see these new friends again. I’ve never been the kind to rearrange my room or quit jobs or get rid of college sweatshirts I’ve grown unreasonably attached to—I want things to remain the same forever and ever amen.

Since that fateful December evening last year when my roommate told me she was leaving, I’ve had several friends announce their departure from Nashville. Some suddenly, some not so suddenly. Some are getting married; some venturing off to grad school; some just need a change. Even friends who are not moving are experiencing dramatic shifts in their lives—new jobs; new spouses; new foster kids. When I really reach down deep into the self-pitying depths of myself, here is the story I come up with: life is moving on without me. 

I still feel twenty-three, begging my friends to stay in a city they’ve outgrown so we can forever huddle into our favorite corner booth and swap stories about bad dates and bad bosses and barely being able to pay our rent. I want time to freeze and for everything to remain as thrilling and impossible and romantic as it is to be in your early twenties, living in a cool city and chasing worthwhile dreams alongside your best friends.

But now I am twenty-eight. We move out in less than three weeks. All the contents of my closet are currently sprawled out across my bedroom floor because every time I try to pack them up or haul them off to Goodwill I get too sad and start scrolling through TikTok instead. Once upon a time, when twenty-eight felt old, I told my roommate that I wouldn’t live in this apartment past this year. As wonderful as this place has been, it feels a little like college, like a place you live in when you only have twenty dollars per week for groceries and have to buy the cheap toilet paper. Besides, by the time I turned twenty-eight I would be living in a house I own, right?

Instead, I still spend my evenings bartending; still trying to figure out how my creativity fits into the world. Still going on terrible first dates and buying the cheap toilet paper. While my friends build successful businesses and talk about having kids, I wonder about the possibility of creating a time machine that will take me back to five years ago—a place where I still fit in and nobody else has any idea what they’re doing, too.

This is why I dread change so much. Not only does it rip you away from the things you find most comforting and familiar, it also shakes you awake to the reality of your life—to the expectations that disappointed you; the dreams that have grown stale; the hope you lost along the way. I can no longer just go through the motions because the motions are no longer there to go through.

At the beginning of this year, I told my therapist I was afraid all this grief would harden me. How do I experience the sadness that comes from having an aversion to change without growing detached from friendships and circumstances that come with the risk of leaving? And, as I watch them leave, how do I believe that there is a new chapter for me, too? Without surprise, she said I must lean into it. I must feel all the things. I must be uncertain and scared and lonely. I must embrace with open arms the sadness that things don’t get to remain the same forever and ever amen. And, with time, I must give myself permission to move on. 

Three weeks from now, I will drive for three days across the country, two cats in tow, to my parents’ house in Phoenix. I will stay there through the holidays and hike and write and hold my new nephew. I will take several deep breaths and drive back to Nashville in January. I will not move into a home I purchased, but I will move into an apartment all my own. I will transform it into a space that cultivates good art and laughter with new and old friends. I will reintroduce myself to a city that has cradled me in every way for ten years, and I will attempt to allow change to be the catalyst for growth instead of an excuse to wallow. I will embrace all of the grace there is to be found in a new season. Grace that is not just meant for my friends who are leaving or getting married or going to grad school; grace that is meant for me, too. Forever and ever amen.