I'll see you

Seventeen days and counting.
It's transfer season and it's also summer R&R season.
If you're in the Foreign Service you know that means that many of your friends are leaving. Maybe for just a few weeks or maybe they are leaving this post for good.
It's a bittersweet time.
If you are like us you are leaving for good. The movers will be arriving soon to pack up all our belongings and ship them to Amman. Or for Z the U.S.
This place that is starting to feel like home will be behind us soon. More importantly we are separating from the people who have come to be our friends.
I have been so very lucky to make friends who are both American and Indonesians and I must say, thank God for Facebook because for most of them it will allow me to still have some connection into their lives. It won't be the same.
The closest comparison I can make is when I was in college. Each year that batch of seniors left and we were all left missing them. In the fall and eager group of freshmen came to take their place and made it a new kind of awesome. Even when you go back as a graduate you will never again capture the magic of your time there.

Transfer season makes this even trickier. We all come and go at different times. I feel like we keep double checking who is leaving when. What is your last day? When are you going on Home Leave?
What is your departure date?

When is the last time you will see someone? A meeting? An Embassy party? Across the salon for that one last cream bath? Gathering your kids up at the pool?

In the end we all vanish. With our overstuffed suitcases we head out to the Jakarta airport and its never possible to say all of your goodbys.

So, for all of you who I will miss.
Know that I have counted myself very fortunate to know you. And here is to seeing you somewhere else in the word.

Our friend James said it best...."I'll see you, around"