LEARNED: Leaving Hurts.
But you’ll be back in a week! Everyone says.
And they’re all right, of course. But as of tomorrow, I stop paying rent here, and start paying rent back in Boston again. As of tomorrow, my symbolic, albeit temporary, departure means that summer is done and everything in life must reconvert back to what it was in May. Which will happen, but will not be fun.
This season was but a burning sparkler — so bright until it faded too fast.
From Joan Didion’s 1967 essay, Goodbye to All That:
Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known about… . You see I was in a curious position in New York: it never occurred to me that I was living a real life there. In my imagination I was always there for just another few months, just until Christmas or Easter or the first warm day in May.
In my imagination, or in reality.
