is this what graduation feels like?

Fifth grade in my school is when

one of the kindergartners is your

book buddy,

when we read to them every Friday morning,

and when we leave,

it's when we mourn

the loss of our little friend

who wrote us notes and read to us

with a shaky hand, stuttering voice

smoothing into

grace and ease as we taught them

as they grew

like ivy, taking over our hearts and height charts

(or maybe I'm just short)

and when we're in high school

and we visit

we'll marvel at how they've grown again

and they'll recognize us

in that fourth-grade, fifth-grade

barely-making-eye-contact tweenage hair-flip

we do

when we see ours.

Except

everyone else gets to come back

and watch their book buddies grow up

but hey guess what

mine's moving to Chicago

this summer,

my wonderful book buddy,

who can read perfectly, fluently, whose writing

maybe isn't so great yet

but he hardly needs help anymore,

and he's moving to Chicago this summer,

and I'm never going to see him again,

and he wrote me a card

in his blocky, rounded kindergarten handwriting

saying

will you ever come to Chicago to visit?

and god

I wish I could

come back in high school

and see him again,

because

fifth grade in my school is when we have book buddies,

but I'm never going to see mine again.

Is this

what graduation

feels like?

Is this

what getting older

is?