Have you all been losing a lot of friends to the San Francisco real estate market too? It is starting to bum me out.

I just had to say goodbye to another friend leaving San Francisco this week. This has been the hardest goodbye yet. In the Bay Area in 2016, city parents aren’t making the decision to flee to the sunny embrace of the East Bay or the shrouded backyards of Marin. They can’t afford them either. Two bedroom apartments in the East Bay, Marin, and Peninsula are all in the $3000+ range. Median home prices, even in the suburbs, are around $1 million. San Francisco is a city without a New Jersey. Once you’ve been out-priced here, your option is to move to a different region of the country.

And so another friend is moving a few states over. We’re crushed.

I’ve had to say goodbye to a lot of friends over the past 20 years. We all have right? High school, graduating college, first jobs, grad school, and then, of course, maybe a cross-country move thrown in. We tear up and say goodbyes, promises to visit and stay in touch.

Having kids changes that. We still promise those future visits, but it’s hard to fool ourselves with how hollow those promises sound now. And then there’s the true heartache: knowing you won’t get to see each other’s kids grow up after all. Kids are a catalyst, making a sad situation that much sadder.

She came up to me at Main Library one day, pointed out I’d been at Golden Gate Park the day before, and then immediately said something wildly opinionated.

If you know me, you know there’s nothing I like more than a lady with opinions. Hi, new mom friend, I am SOLD.

Like me, she didn’t drive. So we traveled around San Francisco sporting our city mom, pack mule look: baby in front, backpack in back, various doodads dangling down within easy reach and Clipper cards shoved into back pockets. When she moved across town, we stared at Muni maps and plotted the best neighborhoods to meet in.

Tuesday at East Beach? Yes. Have I been to Wood Line yet? Nope. There’s a petting zoo where on what day? Sure.

Our babies slowly became little girls, all tutu skirts and rain boots, pigtails waving in the wind as they bounced along hiking trails and laughed themselves silly over whoever-knows-what-they’re-talking-about. Impressively, having another baby didn’t slow her down at all; she wrapped the new baby up in a Moby and got back on Muni, emailing to let me know which museums were free this week.

I’m losing my explorer friend, but I’m also losing a solid mom friend. The “get a grip” friend we all need. She doesn’t have time for whining or complaining. I don’t even remember her complaining about her pregnancy once, even in her ninth month. It was what it was, whatever I’m tired but let’s keep hiking. She never brushed aside my parenting freak outs with some you-go-girl, mom power aphorism. She’d either take them seriously and offer real advice, or offer a subtle, sympathetic suggestion to calm it down. You know, to get a grip.

She is the mother who always musters up the energy to make her kid laugh, to teach them something new, or run over to play with them on a seesaw. She’s also the lady that’s friends with everyone at the park, remembering names, ages, and recent ailments. I’ve watched her parent for 2 years, trying to capture just a bit of that for myself.

I know she is much happier now that they’re off to a new adventure in a new city. I wish you all could have seen the burden lift once she decided to move. San Francisco weighs on people, people with kids and people without kids alike. None of us know how long we’ll be able to live here, or how long we’ll even want to live here so badly we’re willing to put up with the rest of it.

So. That happened this week. I’m probably going to feel a little lost for a while.

If only there were online dating sites to meet other moms. Restless, quiet quasi-blogger obsessed with parenting books, seeking down-to-earth, outgoing mom with sharp sense of humor, for play dates and free urban adventures.