nostalgia

She's gone--no one has ever been so good a friend;

Gone before my heart was full, or ready for an end.

She's gone, and with her the cure for this pain.

The rose is gone and still the thorn remains.

#1040: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search word: friend

My son and I went to a party yesterday, the first party we've been to in years. We both thoroughly enjoyed it because most of the time people sat at a round table in the garden and we talked. There was some community there. Later, when everyone else had gone, there were four of us left listening to some music of the 60s and 70s: Leonard Cohen and The Kinks. It was a deeply satisfying get together.

And yet the gathering had to end, friends had to part, the usual round of days has had to return. There remains a nostalgic mood, a sweet sadness, as I contemplate the thorn without its rose.

nostalgia 1770, "severe homesickness" (considered as a disease), Mod.L. (cf. Fr. nostalgie, 1802), coined 1668 by Johannes Hofer as a rendering of Ger. heimweh, from Gk. nostos "homecoming" + algos "pain, grief, distress." Transferred sense (the main modern one) of "wistful yearning for the past" first recorded 1920.
source

I also dreamt of taking a trip back home from another state, wondering whether to stop off at the major city on the way. I am a little old, a little confused, but I feel sure I will find my way.