what do i do when lightening strikes me?

Elton had it all wrong when he said that "sorry" seems to be the hardest word. (We've all seen the monumentally positive power of sorry in recent months, after all.) Goodbye is waaaaaay harder. There are good goodbyes + bad goodbyes but, for old softy Claire here, there are rarely easy goodbyes. Predictably - given that there's only four weeks now til my move - my goodbye moments are starting to hit a little harder + faster. I'm feeling it, dammit.

The first big one kicked in the day that I resigned. Carolyn got teary over a celebratory drink that afternoon + of course that set me off. She has since been banned from displaying emotion until at least the farewell party.

I had a weird goodbye moment when I went arse-over-teakettle on the back step + did aforementioned damage to back bottom left rib. The fact that I had just quit my job hit me acutely as I lay winded in the rain, contemplating severe spinal damage. Funny that. The fact that I am about to quit the best ever sharehouse hit me acutely when Holley, Sal + Ethan turned up at the hospital a couple of hours later with love in their hearts + chocolate in their hands . See... good and bad.

Last week I sifted through a large grab-bag of personal emails + plunged head-long into goodbye moments. The weird thing about some of those goodbyes was that they had nothing to do with my move. Relationships change + shift regardless of whether I stay or go (now). I have a strong tendency to hold on but not everyone lets me. There will always be the Ev's of this world who refuse to be held. As my ma says - in one of her very rare pieces of wisdom - there are friends for a reason, friends for a season + friends for life. Last week I farewelled some of those seasonal friends + shed a tear for good times past. It was hard not to when stumbling across the sparkling email repartee of Bez + Mr T. Example: the 5-day a week centrifuge is spinning out of control. today, a mere day, is just one little spokey dokey clinking with joy. Ah Thorny, how I loved you + how I release you!

On the weekend I started packing in earnest. I needed to get some momentum up in order to feel like I'm on top of things, but momentum is a double-edged sword. With it comes the acceleration of change - good and bad. Monsieur Change does not discriminate between the two. I packed up my books - good. I swaddled my pretty glassware - good. I pulled all the posters down off the walls - bad. I stumbled across a box of love letters from he-who-shall-not-be-named - very bad.

I don't know what the moral of this story is... + my small handful of loyal readers know that I do usually lean towards a moral. I guess it's just that dems da breaks. Life is full of the good + the bad, the lightening strikes + the snuffed out candles, the goodbyes + the au revoirs. And there's nothing we can do to change that... regardless of whether we stay or go (now).