I agree with you Cynthia about remaining friends even if you live far away from them. What I can't deal with is when some people 'demand' how you communicate with them including frequency and get all upset if you don't call them all the time, i.e. text messages and emails are unacceptable - you have to call me or talk to me face-to-face.

I think you should talk to her about your feelings. I think as TCKs we need to let people know what we truly feel and let the other person understand what we are going through or how hard (or not hard) it is for us to go through this.

What is definitely hardest is this, are you willing to sacrifice friendship or do you really think regardless of what happens you will always keep in touch? I am not sure what the best advice is to give you but this what I think for myself.

I cherish friendship a lot and regardless of where we go on our separate ways I always believe we will always end up running into each other. If I become good friends with someone, I literally will treat them as good friends for life. I'd try my best to keep in touch - email, letters, Facebook, you name it. I would do anything to maintain this friendship. Yes it is a lot of work but I hate to lose a friend and I don't see why I should let "things go their own ways". I don't have to lose a friend - I can always keep them. I will only lose them if I find that no matter what I do I just can't get along with them.

And as people of the world, friends are very important because they are our connections to many places. I think it is important that we keep them instead of destroying them because we hate to leave or we have no feelings.

But that's just my thought and experiences :)

I've done this so many times it's not funny. Started when I was 12 and realized I couldn't miss people all the time... I'd be a sob story the rest of my life. It's a way of coping, I think... prepping for the goodbye before it comes (isn't the brain/mind/body amazing? we know what's coming before it's conscious)

Questions...
1) in reality, will you ever see her again? if email is all there will be, forget it, except for the once a year merry Christmas happy new year's etc... plus, you never know, in ten years you might go to Bolivia and need a contact... or have friends who go down there...
2) does she have similar life experiences? if so, talk about it, like Julie said. if not, at least you understand what you're doing and why, and then you can at least tell yourself to be nice and accept the fact that goodbyes are part of a TCK's everyday life.

Comments...
1) you will make other friends (a very important life skill for TCKs)
2) you may run into her or someone who knows her years from now and remember a good time you had years ago
3) you've shared an experience with her, and she with you. she will remember you.
4) goodbyes are painful, and you already know that she can't stay with you forever... you've already started saying goodbye... try to say goodbye in gentle ways. I've been spending time with someone I know I will have to part ways with sooner or later, it's just that we don't really want to. Every so often I will whisper, 'goodbye' into the air, gently, but with no regrets. It's inevitable.

The 'goodbye' reminds me of reality and makes me ok with it, and I remind myself that pulling away could hurt the other person as well as myself (don't want any regrets, right?). I also know how I feel when I sense people pulling away from me, or shutting me out, and I resolve not to do that, but to live every moment together to its fullest. No regrets. Even in goodbyes. A strange paradox.

If this is a good friend who will understand you may want to talk to her about what is happening but on the other hand it may be a hard thing for someone to understand. I ahve also struggeled with that but usually just held it in and tried to not cause a fight put on a good face a get through it however may is a long way off yet and it usually don't work too well anyway. I am nto sure I can help you much exept to say if you know what is casueing it maybe you will be able to catch yourself acting in this way and try to stop yourself. if you e-mail or soem thing you could try getting lots of communication happening there even if you are seeing each other a lot becasue that communication dosn't ahve to end so you will not be saying goodbye on it. That helped me a bit with leavign people but when my friend who is going to indonesia came to see me a few months ago I kept us pretty busy going shopping mostly becasue I couldn't risk sitting and talking a lot at the time as I knew she would be leaving and knew waht I would end up doing.

oh, btw... "the title "here we go again" is because i've done this before, and lost friends before because of it. And i don't want to do it again :(