Merrit Malloy will tell you that it’s the holding on beyond the letting go that makes family from strangers.

I’ll tell you we’re not all capable.

As the years pass, friends find their mates, get married, find their first homes, and make babies. Sometimes they move away, some times the wife becomes a mistress to the job.

When you’re the one with the restless soul and the uterus not zoned for habitation, you find yourself breaking free and set back out to sea searching for a new, safe harbor. And, if you’re like me, you remember back to philosophy in 11th grade and the dissection of Aristotle (or was it Socrates?) who taught us that we’re all using each other for something anyway. Damn those bitter old men, I’ll believe in BFF’s if I want to.

So here I am in what could easily be rough waters and waves that threaten to swallow me whole, but they’re not. I’m docked. Safe. Laughing with new friends over wine, open to kindred spirits and not worrying about the next voyage. Not yet.

It’s inevitable that we’ll change, but maybe this time we’ll all hang on.