I hate losing friends. Sometimes I lose them at amusement parks, or at the beach, or on hikes. Occasionally I'll lose one at a party or sporting event. Generally, in these situations, I find my friends again. It's when I lose them for good that it really hurts.

During high school I was involved in Girls State and Freedom Foundation, a couple of student leadership type programs unrelated to my school. And then, during college, I worked at a camp in Maine for a summer. In each of these experiences I made many friends that I have since lost.

Back in the mid-to-late 80s, keeping friends meant writing letters. No cell phone calls, no texting, no Facebook, not even a word processor at which to sit down and quickly type a letter. No, these friendships required good old-fashioned hand written letters. And we know from my last post that I love letters. The reality is, however, that teenage girls eventually find better things to do than sit down and write to other girls (writing to boys, for instance), and thus these pen pal relationships disappear.

As you get older you start to realize what a precious commodity friends are and you feel their loss more acutely.  I still mourn the loss of one of my best friends from college. She had been like a sister to me and I went and upset her (as sisters often do), and the friendship dissolved rapidly. We now exchange the occasional Christmas card but I know there's really no love in that standard "Love, Krista" closing.

Time and distance are another enemy of friendships. A few years ago, a group of young adults from Northern Ireland joined my church family for a mission trip. We housed a couple of the boys/young men at our home. Friendships were made fast and furiously, and there was even a romance in there (not with me, of course), but with time and the ocean between us, those relationships have slowly fallen by the wayside and it's only the occasional Facebook post that lets me know they're alive and kicking and doing fine.

The point of this post (which I apologize for taking a while to get to) is that I'm about to lose more friends and I'm not happy about it. Our beloved youth director at Media Presbyterian Church, Mark Boyd, is to become the senior pastor of Park Presbyterian Church in Beaver, PA. In about a month, he and his lovely wife Jamie, and their four amazing kids will move five-plus hours across the state to make their home in Steeler country. Now, I realize you're out there saying, "You silly, pessimistic girl, you can still be friends even with them moving!" But we all know that the reality is that it's hard enough to maintain close friendships with people who live across the street, much less those who move across the state. Yes, we'll keep in touch with the Boyds via Facebook, and undoubtedly Mark and my husband will text (cause that's what they do), but it won't be the same as having them here to share in Cheap Chicken Mondays, or impromptu bbqs in the backyard. And I hate that.

The Boyds: Freakin' Angel Jamie, Mark, Miller, Moria, Mila (missing from the photo: Makenzie)

So here's a shout out to friends, old and new, near and far. Thank you for the difference you've made in my life, and know that no matter how much time and distance may separate us, you will always remain in my heart.