It's not good bye, it's good bye

"I'm glad for you, but sad for me."

I 've said that more times than I'd like to count recently.

A whole slew of people are abandoning ship at my work and I don't like it much. A couple are good friends of mine and Bill's and Margaret's.

When I first started working here, a sage co-worker advised me to not make friends in the newsroom. Not because the reporters aren't worthy, but by the nature of the business and the size of this newspaper (it's a smaller community newspaper — perfect for cutting one's teeth and using as a stepping stone), there is a lot of turnover.

Because I'm an utter nincompoop, I rarely heed such good advice. And now I'm watching a couple good friends get ready to leave.

One such friend is Emily. She's not just my friend but Margaret's, too (and she reads this blog, so I'll just be careful to only write about her many postive features and offer that I'm sure she would never set fire to anything or rinse shoes where she shouldn't).

Today for a brief time, I had Margaret in the office with me. I had forwarned her that Emily was going to be moving away to live closer to her family. Margaret was honestly distraught.

While we were visiting with Emily, Margaret very boldly told Emily that she was "big enough now to live by herself."

Ah, the observations of a 6-year-old.

Emily tried to explain that her brother had children that she wanted to see grow. Mar's response, "Ewwwww!"

I mean, how could someone pick their own flesh and blood over her? She is Margaret after all, daughter of Robin.

I should note that Margaret now owns her very own, "It's all about me" t-shirts. She and I should have our picture taken while wearing them.