I hate this part

If you transfer during summer season, I highly recommend you try to leave in May.

Otherwise, you will be like us, among the last to leave. You just get to say goodbye over and over and over to people you care about. Granted, this is the Foreign Service, so you will likely see them again.

Even so, it sucks.

We had a few friends leave along the way...an unexpected curtailment, the transfer of some folks who arrived a year or more before us.

But now it has begun in earnest, with the people we have served with for the last three years departing.

And it sucks.

I've already said goodbye to some of these folks.
More will leave soon.
And in two months, so will I.
I hate this part

It actually started last month with the Departure of one friend, though his wife is still here through the end of the school year, so that one feels less real.

And then last week, one friend who I have served with for four years total, because we were at a previous post together, also left. That too feels a little unreal because I misjudged his flight date and didn't get to say goodbye.

Thank God for Facebook.

So today it really started to feel real. One of our good friends is flying out tomorrow. She and her husband and their impossibly cute baby came by the embassy to say goodbye.

I really hate this part.

This week, my deputy will leave, and she will be horribly missed. Let me tell you, having a deputy where you can confidently take vacation and know your section will be fine is worth her weight in gold. And she is. She was great when she got here, but I have watched her over two years develop into an exceptional officer.I'd serve with her again anywhere.

Next week, another good friend departs. And then another and another.

We have a great group of folks here...I am not happy to see any of them go. And I am REALLY unhappy about having to see ALL of them go.

Stupid summer transfer season.

New folks are coming. I am sure they are all great.

And the pouty me doesn't want to know any of them. Because my friends are leaving. And in two months, so will I.

I hate this part.