Today was a complete bust.

I’ll start off saying this week destroyed me, and I feel a bit befuddled because I walked into it completely unaware. I KNEW this week was gonna be hard just with the sheer amount of shit I needed to get done (both at work and at work after work), but I didn’t want to think about it beforehand because one of those things was two of my closest friends moving to New York (they make an awesome married couple). So I wound up pretending every single thing leading up to it wasn’t really ACTUALLY happening.

Then it happened. Now every bit of me is exhausted.

So I spent a lot of time today watching all of the relationship Kevin Smith movies back to back to back to back (while also getting one of those other things I had to get done done).

It also didn’t help that this morning I stayed in bed to read the last third of Ready Player One.

And now I’m listening to Disintegration.

So let’s see what we’ve got so far: denial, funny nostalgia, painful nostalgia, mopey nostalgia.

That’s usually a good signal to my reptile brain that there’s something I need to start working on if I want to pull myself out of this weird little hole I’ve dug myself into tonight. Thus the Disintegration. I swear, I don’t even have to paint my nails black since they’re the exhaust ports through which the emo escapes my body. The Cure helps facilitate this periodic venting.

In any case I realize I’ve been thinking a lot about friends and relationships lately. No surprises there. I don’t want to get into any of it, really, but saying goodbye is awful. I can see why some people never move. It must be nice to never have to acknowledge the little deaths, the goodbyes that signify the end of a period of your life. Because when people  who deserve their own epochs leave, you feel like you’re losing that part of you they nurtured and helped change. And you sit and worry that the memories you’re left with will be all you ever talk about when you get a chance see them again over coffee because there’s nothing else to talk about.

But I’ve had extremely good fortune to have the people I do in my life. They’re the kind of people I know will always be there with me for the rest of my life. And even though we don’t live in the same cities anymore, it’s only a matter of time before we see each other again. It’s inevitable.

So when I pulled into their driveway to pick up their coffee table to replace my one that was on the verge of collapse (due to a system-wide duct tape failure), I realized it was the last time I’d be pulling into their driveway. And I almost lost it right there in the car.

I had to say goodbye A LOT this past year, and I’m going to have to say it a lot more this upcoming year. And there’s nothing I can do about any of it except keep on plugging away at all of these other things, like reading, slushing, article editing, writing, story editing, band practice, while hopefully squeezing in some errands and some yoga in there somewhere. It’ll make the time fly by until I can see them all again.

At least that’s what I’ll do until the next goodbye in a few weeks.