That empty bookshelf

I spent the night with my American friend Bea last night, probably the last time I will too before she leaves for her new life in North Carolina. When I finally fell asleep after two hours of our chattering about life and love and men and children, and after watching two hours of the Best of Oprah Cd her mother had mailed, and crying over the Elie Wiesel interview and the impoverished black grandma who won a new car, I finally brushed my teeth said goodnight and prepared to fall asleep in her bed. She always gives me her bed when I stay, refusing to let a guest languish on a mattress on the floor, the fine art of Southern hospitality.

After she went to bed I just lay there staring at the skylight and all the light flooding into her bedroom. I don't sleep well in her room. I need total darkness to sleep and her mattress is a little too firm for the liking. How can you complain though when someone gives you their bed and always has? You really can't.

As I stared at her empty bookshelf it hit me hard that she was actually leaving. I remembered the hundreds of times I'd pulled a book off of that shelf, not knowing the author, her egging me on to try it, plunging into another world, escaping. I suddenly realized that I was going to be lost without her advice, her bear hug goodbyes, our Monday marathon phone calls and the toolbox full of tricks she's passed on for making my way through the maze of French bureaucracy for teaching EFL for the first time, and most importantly for breastfeeding and second language child raising, my toughest hurdles ever.

I hate exits. I'm terrible at them and so I'm feeling lost and sad this week. Seb has called me a million times because he knows this is big, that the moment is getting closer when I'm going to melt down into a puddle of goo, and he'll have to find a way to make it all better. Honestly I'm not sure how I'll feel when she finally leaves in June. I've been trying to deal with it since last Summer when I first realized that it was real, that she would leave. Now I'm not sure if I've dealt with it or not. The lump in my throat comes back at the oddest moments and then I have to admit that it's going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye for the last time.

I wonder why and how we get so attached to people who aren't our family? Why do women need that connection with other women so badly? Why do we need to talk and share?

And what one earth am I going to do now when I need to touch base?