B Y O Horn

Is it just me, or is it pretty hard to make friends?

There's all of that small talk and feeling things out at first. 

Then there's time spent building up things in common to talk about, and then talking about doing together, and then actually doing together.

Parents of young kids often make friends with other parents of young kids in order to trade stories, recipes, child-rearing secrets, and petty gossip about how other parents are royally screwing their kids up.

These friendships are good, but so often it takes lots of work to make something really real stick.

 So meeting someone that makes you instantly comfortable, with whom a first-meeting feels like the middle of a long-time-running conversation, with comfortable silences and blithe banter peppered throughout...

well, I would consider that about as rare as a unicorn sighting. 

I recently moved in next to a unicorn.

(A unicorn who, as she reads this, is surely rolling her eyes and cursing the day she met me. Deal with it, Lady.)

This unicorn first rescued me from a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day involving Avery, a neighbor girl's hair and a pair of scissors. From there she went on to save me from pregnancy illness and exhaustion, boredom, depression, and ever feeling ordinary. 

Who could possibly feel ordinary with such a friend?!

I have been able to make some great friends since our move here nearly a year ago, and I feel like I owe a lot of that to being so at home in my little corner of our little street -- something I am sure I could not have done without moving near my insta-friend.

I mean, not only is she extraordinary and so thoughtful and a good person and all of that dumb crap, but she is hilarious and adorable and witty. 
AND she can reach things on the top shelf!! And I mean the tippy-top! 
I can't believe I didn't mention that last one first.
Living across the street from her has been a dream.

Just over a month ago, when she told me that she and her family were leaving our little corner of Skid Row for a better job and better house with better pay in far-off town (...okay, it's only two and a half hours away, but still!), I cried so hard and so long that it was like the end of Old Yeller, Armageddon, Titanic, Romeo + Juliet, My Girl, Beaches, Steel Magnolias, and season 3 of Downton Abbey all rolled into one.
Of course, I did my best to pretend to be happy for her (don't worry- she didn't buy it), but there was some ugly, ugly crying going on. 

Thankfully for the past few weeks I have been able to pull off an oh-so-casual "Don't Cry Out Loud" act and put on a mostly-brave face through all of the packing and final weeks of being a unicorn's neighbor.
But the truth is that I am heartbroken.

Their house was empty by noon on Saturday.
 I spent the weekend away from our place in the daylight hours, dragging my family anywhere-but-here, just avoid the empty windows from across the street.
I have spent endless hours, too, dreaming up a move that we can't afford to a different street or city or suburb just to avoid missing them so much and so often. 
And it's only been a few days.

So for now I'm stuck here missing our kid's crazy playtime, our daily chats, weekly movie dates, quarterly girl's nights out/double dates, and the constant stream of laugh-our-faces-off texts.
 ...actually, I don't and won't miss that last one since I am determined they continue. I mean, just because that crazy couple-from-every-Nicholas-Sparks-book-turned-movie couldn't figure out the whole letter-writing thing doesn't mean our long distance opposite-of-bromance will fizzle!

I guess all of this is my way of publicly declaring (i.e. convincing myself) that I don't have to go back to a unicornless existence just because of a big, dumb Uhaul truck.

P.S. I know. There's a "horny" joke in here somewhere with the whole unicorn thing that I am a little too sad to make, so I will just reference it here so you don't think I'm losing my touch.