Little goodbyes

I should be in bed, I know I should, but it's hard to get to sleep after just getting off work. But that is something to celebrate: my last night on the job. Yay! I'm finally done working nights at the newspaper. I appreciated getting the extra work the past few weeks, but working 6 days a week is wearing me down. But no more! Now I'm a hard-working 5-day-a-week woman, with weekends reserved just for me.

I will, however, miss the people I worked with. They were so much fun. One thing about working in a newsroom is that there is never a boring moment, what with people running around making deadlines and with the interesting array of people who work there. They were absolutely hilarious; well, still are, but I won't be there to join in the jollity.

That's the price to pay for moving on, though. I should be used to this by now. I was so good about picking up and moving on, not letting my emotions rule my decisions. Now, I'm saddened when things change, when people I've learned to care for are no longer there to laugh or cry with.

When did I get so settled? Throughout high school and college I was such a nomad. Most of my life, actually. As long as I had interesting people to spend my time with, I was okay. If one of them had to move on with her life, that was okay, too, and I wished her well. But now I feel a little lost when someone leaves, like they're taking a piece of me with them. It hurts. That's what I don't like with this settling down thing. When you finally get to the point where you find good people, you don't want it to change because it hurts to say goodbye.

I've never been good at goodbyes. Maybe that's why it was easier to move on when I was younger. I could pretend that I'd run into them again and then it wouldn't really be goodbye anyway, more of a see you later.

Now the goodbyes are starting to set in, and the impermanence of life hits me. That, if nothing else, is reason for me to appreciate the moment I'm living right now: to store up those beautiful memories for a time when that is all I'll have left of my friends.