July 2018

1

On Leaving in 18 Days

Posted on Thursday, July 12, 2018

Right now is hard.
Right now is two-and-a-half weeks from the day I leave, 2,135 days from when I last hauled my life across the ocean, a night alone in my apartment after saying goodbye to the first colleauges over a few beers. Tonight is quiet, with a glass of red wine and the cat sleeping at the end of the bed and The National playing and tonight is a rare opportunity to take stock.

Are you wondering what it feels like to pack up everything and to bite the bullet and to just decide to go?
Here is what it feels like:
It feels like part of your heart is being pulled from inside you. It feels like you are leaving a part of yourself behind, it feels like you are closing the door on a chapter of your life, it feels like you are making a conscious decision to leave behind people and things and places that you have loved, very much. Because, well, that is what it is.
I got home today and the big tears that had been hiding behind my eyes all day, threatening to fall if anyone said just one sentence more, finally fell. Molly the cat was sitting on my chest as it heaved (until I sobbed just once too many times and she had had enough) and I lay on my bed and looked at the empty walls and thought about what I really am packing - slowly, but surely.
I am packing away a part of myself, a whole life I have lived alone for six years now. I am packing away the days where I do what I want, or I do nothing because I want to do nothing. I am packing away cooking for myself every single day, glass of wine in hand and music or podcast or movie playing, Molly at my ankles. I am packing away the glorious silence of living alone, but also the terrible loneliness that strikes when least expected.
I am packing away the things I've picked up over the years. I am not packing up the things I have given away: the shirt I wore for my 24th birthday which does not fit anymore, both in size and in everything else; Cards Against Humanity because it's too heavy and maybe we're all past that game by now; the glasses I picked up for ten cents a piece and loved but they'd just break anyway; the workout pants I wore for my first half-marathon and my second and my third. I am not packing the tiny oven that has served me so well, the one I got for free after seeing a Facebook post in a group at just the right time. I'll leave behind the tiny oven that has roasted chickens and late-night pizzas and re-heated McDonalds (because it's never hot enough once I walk it down from the closest one) and the first meal I cooked for my guy and a couple of Thanksgiving meals and the snacks I made for drinks with the girls and breakfast and lunch and dinner, day after day after day. The oven is too small and far too dirty at this point and I haven't used it lately because we have been having a bit of a heat wave, but it has worked hard and served me well and I will be sad to say goodbye to it, even though it might be the worst oven in the world.
I won't be packing the marks around this apartment of good nights spent here. The stains on the bathroom door can't come with me, the one that a friend made when, during a party, half of the handle fell off and he was locked inside for too long until we stopped laughing long enough to figure out how to open it. I can't take the marks on the floor with me, either. The spilled sauce and wine and water and, okay, the occasional tiny cat vomit when I give in to the cat's incessant begging and fed her a bit of chicken or yogurt or tuna. The floor that has seen the messes of the past three years must stay here.
I can't take the stupid clothes rack that I actually hate because it always seems like it might fall down, and it scratches the floor when I move it in the winter so that it's not directly in front of the heater. My clothes rack just has eight things left on it. I think that at one point, it might have had close to 80. After three years of picking what to wear to work, of finding the workout shirt that might look cool enough in spin class, of searching for the thing I might have lent to someone but I'm not so sure but I really can't find it right now, of finding something to wear on terrible date after terrible date until the right man came along.
I've lived in this little room - because it isn't more than a room, let's be honest - for three years now. So many days of looking around and seeing my things, the things I was given or I inherited or I picked out at a store or a market or a garage sale. And now, the clothes hanger is empty, the shelves are showing their dusty backs, the clutter is disappearing little by little. It's starting to look a bit sparse around here, and it scares me.

But maybe I'm silly to be scared. Because at the end of the day, what am I leaving behind? Just things. Luckily for me, the things that I actually need to take with me aren't things at all - they're memories, and feelings, and realizations, and truths. Lessons learned the easy way or the hard way. Mistakes, and triumphs, and all the tiny moments in between.
In 18 days, I'll be on the plane. Between now and then, every single day will be a great rush of trying to see everybody that I love here, trying to do everything that I love, trying to enjoy every moment as much as I can, trying to remember, remember, remember, and to never forget. I am already so exhausted and it is only the beginning of the end. I am trying to enjoy it all, the big things and the small. The tiny things are the best; the smell of flowers when I walk in the front door downstairs into the hall shared with the florist, the fact that a major current concern at work right now is how best to celebrate Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday, the "Salut!" from the barman at the café at the corner when I walk past, the cheese sections of grocery stores, every single interaction with friends, and the laughter, the laughter, the laughter.
I have been wanting to write more, because sometimes it feels like if I don't I might explode with everything I have been thinking. But how to find the time to write, between the bags to pack and the WiFi to cancel and the work to finish and the moments to enjoy? How do people remained balanced at times like these?
My mantra has been "keep your head down, and keep going" because if I think I stop too long I'll get overwhelmed and the quicksand will rush in and I won't be able to continue. So I'll keep my head down, and I'll keep going, and making "Blog Post Ideas" notes in my phone, and as soon as everything quietens down a bit I'll be back here to write it down so that I can remember, remember, remember.
It's not a simple time, but a change was more needed than I realized and so I will do my best to welcome the change, and focus on the positive, and keep moving forward. Bear with me. xx