I e-mailed one of my close friends back East yesterday to tell him about my Adventures in the City of Angels and how much fun I was having, and I got a response back from him this morning that kind of saddens me. It's like it's his last summer of carefreeness -- he's starting law school in the fall, so he'll be swamped with hard work for several years, which is not something that either of us are really used to. I've already moved 3000 miles away and another one of his close friends of a long time is moving in August (most likely to California as well) to join the Navy. The group I had back East is falling apart. I used to hang out with these guys practically every weekend. We went to Montreal together. We spent New Year's together. We did our own Thanksgiving celebration. We gathered faithfully for football and beer.

I'm sad because I hate making other people feel bad, and things are getting "in some ways better and in some ways worse" for my friends that I left behind. I feel guilty -- even though I know I shouldn't -- because I'm out here having a great time while I'm contributing to the fact that our old group is falling apart. The one thing that makes me feel better is that despite the distance, we still keep in touch fairly frequently, thanks to e-mail and free long distance on cell phones. Out of all my friends that I left behind, these guys are the only ones I've corresponded with more than once since I moved out here. And yes, I've scheduled a night to spend with them when I hit Boston on my brief East Coast trip in July.