Saying goodbye is never easy. Especially not when you say it over and over again.
“We should grab dinner before you go.”
It’s so easy for people to say. Gets hard to schedule once you’re down to the wire. Which — let’s face it — we have been this entire move. We’ve been trying to do this entire thing in about a month… that sounds reasonable for packing and cleaning up a place. Until you factor in that it’s a hundred-year-old house that needs a few renovations that we’re prepping for sale.
Oh dear, oh dear.
But we’ve been tucking in a few social engagements here and there. We hosted a party that was originally intended to be a small affair to celebrate my birthday but in light of the news that we were moving morphed into a goodbye gathering.
A dinner with so and so. A visit to drop things off at the in-laws. Quick meets and greets as friends stop by the house to pick up something we’re selling or giving away. Where I’m dusty and sweaty and feeling overwhelmed by everything I need to do next but doing my darnedest to be polite and engaged.
It’s madness. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a hurricane, waving my arms and feebly trying to conduct it. I’m not a wizard who can control the weather… but I’m trying to be.
Each goodbye is uncertain. Some people have said goodbye to me several times, not knowing every time if this meeting will be our last (at least for a while).
Because maybe we will grab dinner before I go. And maybe we won’t. I’m a slave to a schedule that is unforeseeable, perpetually governed by things that haven’t happened yet but may or may not fall into place the next few days.
Maybe they’ll see something else they want on my social media. Maybe they’ll come by and help me put fresh paint on the walls of certain rooms.
And maybe they won’t.
Until then, it’s a dozen last suppers — or at least a dozen “last” suppers? And a parade of uncertain goodbyes.
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My new book is out!
Dealing with Difficult Metamours, the first book devoted solely to metamour relationships, full of strategies to help you get along better with your partners’ other partner(s).