Moving Across the Pond

Stephanie and I at a co-worker's wedding reception in April

Today, we had a luncheon to bid farewell to another one of my co-workers and friends, Stephanie. (For those who are keeping count, this makes two good friends who have left in just a little over a year.) When they opened up the floor for people to speak, only one brave lady did. Everyone else was fighting back tears and didn't want to end up doing the "ugly cry" in front of other co-workers.

It's hard to say goodbye to someone who has worked at the same place for sixteen years. And though I've had the fortune to work with her for only six of those years, I also struggled to say goodbye because Stephanie and I have celebrated our birthdays together at work all those years. Sharing a birthday doesn't always equate with sharing similar traits, but for some reason, it did with us: We both have an undergraduate degree in accounting, the same graduate degree from the same grad school, the same discontinued James Avery keychain, a love for all things Ann Taylor, an aversion to being cold, and a desire to always be organized.

Those things won't change. They'll just be harder to recognize because she is moving across the pond where her husband was relocated for his job. So now we'll rely on the similarities upon which we built our friendship to sustain it.

I'm grateful that she still has lots of family in this area to draw her back here. But in the meantime, I've vowed to eat a piece of Fort Worth Black Forest Cake from the Swiss Pastry Shop each October 15 in honor of our birthday.