Departure

This is harder than I expected.  And I expected it to be hard.

I don't mean the packing and the traveling, although that's a nightmare, no doubt about it.

And I don't mean just saying good-bye to all of the things that I love here: the clippity clop of horses' hooves as the wagons go by in the morning.  The soft, melodious clang of the cow bells as they are brought in from the fields in the evening.  Fresh picked cherries in the summer.

I mean leaving people.  Because it always comes down to the people.

I mean that moment when you are hanging out, Skyping with the half of your family in the States and it strikes you that the next time you all Skype, you will not be in the same room but on the other side of the camera.
On the other side of the world.
The rich tones of the voices in the room with you will be replaced by tinny sounds as their words are transferred across the thousands of miles.
Instead of reaching out to put an arm around their shoulders, you will hold up a hand and place it against the screen and have only the memory of the warmth of their touch.

Remembering the surge of joy when you embraced at the train station upon your arrival.
"A whole year."
"Yes."
The world seemed bright with possibilities.

Now the moment of separation hangs in the air like a malevolent specter.  It's coming, that agonizing point when you must look each other in the eye and say your parting words which will seem weak and ineffectual, unable to express all that is in your heart.  The last, tight squeeze and whispered "good-bye", full of a particular brand of desperate sorrow.
The chimerical notion that people so dear will soon be so far away.
The continent of Europe, the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean and the swath of North America.  All of that will lay between you.
Distanta este mare.

Heart break.  Pure and simple.