I hate goodbyes. Farewells aren’t my forte, but this week I’ve had to say goodbye to a good friend as well as a coworker. With my friend Julie headed back to Minnesota, and Anthony leaving our staff in Newton, I’ll be missing two familiar faces.
When she moved back to Iowa two years ago, Julie swore it was only temporary. She just wanted to pay down some of her debt and get her life straightened out before heading back to the Twin Cities. We’ve been friends for almost two decades, it’s gone by fast, but then time sort of stacks up on you as get older. I helped her refinish the garret, her garage apartment. As we painted the walls and installed new flooring in her parent’s old storage space, she told me she’d signed a two-year lease with her parents, just long enough to get her footing back.
I knew that feeling. Like most people my age, I’d already been down that road. Experts call it the “boomerang effect,” when kids move back in with their parents. It’s more common than you might realize, even when the economy is going like gangbusters, it’s often not enough to counteract steadily increasing housing costs.
After a steady stream of nights and weekends, we transformed the former storage space above the garage into an apartment Kinsey Millhone would’ve been proud of. Maybe not quite as spacious as the alphabet sleuth’s digs in Santa Teresa, but Julie at least had a space with heat, air conditioning and Netflix. A lack of plumbing, which sent her back into the main house every time she needed to use the bathroom, was the only negative.
Two years seemed like enough time for Des Moines to grab back ahold of Julie, it tends to have that effect on folks. When I was a kid it seemed like a terrible dump, the most dead end of dead end places, but things change. I’ve changed, and the city has changed as well. A vibrant culture, lead by an incredible restaurant scene has been bubbling up all across the metro. It feels more like home now than the prison it did when I was in high school.
It’s been a little more than a year now since I moved back to Des Moines full time from California, and I still miss Los Angeles. A lot of the things I miss are silly little things, like the Jewish deli we’d have breakfast at or my favorite bar, where we’d watch all the Dodgers playoff games, the waitress in tears after Hanley Ramirez was injured on a beanball in 2013 NCLS. I miss the way our neighborhood smelled after a rainstorm, and I miss watching the antique street lights flicker on at dusk.
I’m always hoping my friends will see those things in here in central Iowa, but deep down, I know change is the biggest part of life. Being afraid of change is why I’m terrible at goodbyes, why I’m a lingerer. I guess I’m always hoping for one last look.
Tacked to the bulletin board that hangs over my desk is the office phone tree. Every time someone leaves or joins the staff our associal editor Pam updates the list and places a new copy on everyone’s desk. In one year the entire newsroom staff has turned over, with the exception of Pam and I.
It won’t be the same without Anthony, or Julie. I’ll be the lone Lakers fan in the newsroom, which is probably a closer match for the statistical norm anyways. Without Julie to drag me out, I probably won’t see as many shows as I did last year. I’ll have to make the trip up to the Twin Cities and find new neighborhoods to explore. It might be hard to accept, but change is the kind of thing that keeps you from getting stagnant.
Maybe I can find a good Jewish deli up there, or a quiet, dark bar, where we can watch baseball games all afternoon.
Contact David Dolmage at
ddolmage@newtondailynews.com