Never Goodbye. Good Journey.

     

    I have always struggled with my emotions. There are so many things I wish I could rationalize and make sense of and apologize for. I've had to come to terms with the fact that mine is a mind unable to perform the way it does for most. As a child, I turned inward and made my own worlds so I could find a place to fit in. Still to this day, I struggle to understand my place in the world around me. I'm blessed to have friendships that defy logic and I've found family because of pure chance. I have encountered people who have believed in me more than I ever could conceive possible. I have been lucky to cross paths with those who would never give up on me... no matter what.

    My friend John was one of those people. My paths have crossed a lot of faces during my many turns around this rock. The first day I met John, he made me laugh... not an easy task. And on that first day that I moved into management, sitting in the basement office with 'The Clash' blasting on my boss's computer... John sneaked in to raid Xochitl's candy drawer, looked at me with all his heart and said "shhh, don't let her know. Also, you're gonna be awesome!"

    John was out the door before I could respond. But I still remember the idiot grin I held after. Someone I'd barely interacted with gave me the kindness and compassion and consideration to reassure me on that first day. I think about that interaction and I still laugh.

    My favorite memory was during a really bad snow storm. We all lived in the area but, thanks to New England, commuting home wasn't an option. I was invited up to my boss's room of the night and I had no idea how funny that night would be. John came prepared: I knocked on the door, I was welcomed with a nip of Fireball whiskey, and 'Nelly' was playing on a speaker. Within three minutes I nearly broke my ribs laughing as John performed a stripper-like display on Xochitl while Leanne and I tried to stop crying from hysteria.

That is who John was.... laughter. He was joy and levity and kindness and sincerity. He embodied the best of all the people I've been blessed to meet along my path. I'm a better person for knowing John, and I will miss his influence and smile. But John will never be gone because of the impact and value he had on those lives he impacted.

Good journey, my friend. May you stand in peace with slow sunsets and quiet, stellar nights. I love you, you magnificent maniac... and I will hold my glass up until we can spill drinks again.

Excising The Scars

 How do you say goodbye?

    How do you learn to move on from a wound that has been a part of you for so long? When every moment since the time that scar formed... when that pain has been a lingering nuisance in the subconscious for so long... how do you let go?

I can't forget those moments together.

    Not the grandiose ones of parties or birthdays or revelry....

        but just the plain simple moments where the world was quiet around us and there was just the sound of us...

            ...breathing.

I don't recognized the face that looks back at me in the mirror. 

So many lines, so many grey hairs that weren't there when it mattered.

And yet I know it's me.

I sit by a river that was never ours, but a place that has become my solace. I read and listen to the wails of frustrated geese and taste the scent the industrial waterway before me, the people milling about, the heavy roadways riding like artificial arteries across the way and I find myself suspended.

        Am I still there,

            or are we still going to be here?

I can't really remember myself before you.

    Is this me even a thing without you?

    

        But I can't sit by the river forever.

Time has that nasty habit of continuing on. Just like that churning Merrimack before me, it pushes forward... cascading over islets and downed branches and boulders and buried hopes. The push of the current never ceases.

Night falls over this quiet extinct city. The sounds of life and love and joy and misery and memory resonate like shockwaves throughout the empty cold twilight. I watch the few passersby pass by, their aimless strangling a beautiful bob in the ebb, the serene bliss of those momentary distractions.

I'm not who I used to be. Neither are you.

    We are not anymore.

As the sky darkens and the stars fall and that condescending crescent grin moves higher over the settling night, I stow my book and I stare out at the onyx paint slick that has become the river.

I can't see it anymore... but I can still hear it.

I can't see you anymore. I can't see what we were anymore.

I'm not sure I can hear it anymore either.

But I hold that sound.

I look up at stars that I see alone.

I feel that scar on my arm from that night.

I look up and I see an empty void.

I'll cary these scars forever.

But I can't rely on them anymore.

The river has continued on,

the waters are now different.