My friend left to go back to San Francisco this afternoon, which means that I came back home to an empty apartment tonight. Chris is also away in San Francisco for Dreamforce, which means it will be a quiet week to myself. When I came home to the apartment tonight, I had the same sort of empty feeling I had the couple of times my parents left New York when they’d visit. Even though it’s chaotic and space is more tight when we had them at my Elmhurst apartment, and even when they’d argue over dumb things and make situations worse than they were, I found that I still missed them. I guess that was my version of “normal.” Of course, my friend who was visiting is nothing like my parents, and she’s very go-with-the-flow when it comes to everything from plans during the day to our shoe box apartment size. We don’t get to spend that much time together anymore, but when we do, we always have a lot of fun. We spent a lot of the weekend reminiscing over crazy things we used to do together when she lived in New York. Even though that time has passed and I’m glad it’s in the past, it’s such a nice feeling to have shared memories and laugh over dumb things we did. I don’t get to do that with that many people anymore.