Two years since Virginia

This past week has been full of emotions as it marks both two years since I moved away from Virginia and one year since Frankie was born (more about that in another post).

It's hard to believe I've now lived in Chicago (as an adult) for longer than I lived in Virginia.

My years in Virginia were a crucial part of my growing-up. I arrived in DC fresh out of college. I was professionally inexperienced, single, and had only one friend in the city (love you, Ruth).

By the time I left, I had built a strong professional track record and I was weeks away from getting married. Most of all I had made so many friends in the city, wonderful friends who I miss every day.

It helps somewhat that a lot of my dear DC friends have moved away as well—to places like Princeton, Boston, Texas, San Diego, and even Scotland. But Virginia will always have my heart, and there will always be a part of me that wishes we still lived in that beautiful place.

Recently a dear friend came to visit me from Philadelphia. As we sat on the couch talking and catching up on a year's worth of conversation (it was her first time meeting my baby!), we both voiced the longing for all our friends to live near each other.

"Wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow all live in one place?" I sighed. "All our friends from high school, from college... all my mom friends... Imagine all of us living in the same city, raising our kids together and getting through hard things with each others' help and celebrating the good times together too. Wouldn't that be the best thing ever?"

It absolutely would be the best thing ever, but we both laughed knowing that it's never going to happen. As much as I might joke about starting a "Catholic commune", we know that all those people are never going to be in the same place at the same time, much less live in the same city.

I thought about it some more, though, and this realization came to me: wishing for all of my friends to be in one place together gives me a certain longing for Heaven, because that is the one place where we will finally all be gathered, able to enjoy each other's company for eternity. (If that sounds crazy to you, just ignore it... I said that to Frank earlier this week and he looked at me like I had three heads!)

Just for fun, here's a trip down memory lane...

My "Things we'll miss about DC series":

Our two favorite restaurants (We still haven't found restaurants here in Chicago that take the place of these two!)

My favorite bookstore

Gorgeous Virginia

Our amazing parish (luckily we've found an equally awesome one here in Chicago)

My old job working as a book editor

And one more just for fun...

The day that Ruth and I went to see the cherry blossoms