This Could Be The Last Time/Never Can Say Goodbye

This whole moving thing, it’s not really to my liking.

This week is a good example of why. Good-byes and lots of them.

Paid my final visit to the cannibis consortium up here. I took my very first personal computer to the dump and unceremoniously disposed of it on top of a heap of equally outdated technology. Got a couple of fillings for the road from the dentist who’s been patching and pulling my teeth for the past nine years. Had The Last Boy Scout over for a final Guitarmageddon a couple nights ago and took The Boy to the community pool today for the last time.

Even stuff I didn’t used to like I’m missing already (perfect example: the dentist).

When we moved up here—3 days before 9/11—I was ready for a fresh start. I’d kind of run my previous situation into the ground and was getting ansty to move on. So when The Missus told me we’d be moving to Christmas Island, I figured, “Great. Whatever. As long as it isn’t here anymore.”

One big difference this time is, I haven’t run my situation into the ground up here yet. There was still a lot of room for growth and I hadn’t gotten the least bit ansty to leave.

The other big difference this time though, is the financial imperative currently at play. With my newspaper gig’s long-term future tenuous at best, and The Missus’ state university job dying the death of a thousand budget cuts, we were well motivated to take the first good offer that came along.

It just happens to be a promising job opportunity that is going to take me away from the liberal, powerful state I’d taken for granted for well over half my life, and where I had—unbeknownst to me—begun to lay down roots.

I’m sure the new place is grand and once I’m on-site and overwhelmed with the unpacking and re-stacking, my thoughts will turn to the future and completely unexpectedly to me, I will begin to build a life there, too.

But it’s hard not to drive down the shady, tree-lined street leading to our hippie little neighborhood of cul-de-sacs and community gardens and not look at the field on the left and remember all the times we ran Woody out there. This is the town he died in. Past the crappy apartment complex we lived in and think, “That’s where we made The Boy.” This is his home town we’re kicking to the curb like a daytime whore.

My carefully-constructed compartmentalizations are beginning to crumble. Just had an exit interview at The Boy’s preschool today, and if I hadn’t been so mad at The Missus for some imagined slight, I might not have made it through the meeting without overtly embarrassing myself. (A little bit of anger, no matter how trumped up, always goes a long way with me. I do “stoic” well when I’m pissed.)

For the record, The Boy was pronounced doing great at his evaluation. The only area his teacher returned to repeatedly was his difficulty in verbalizing his anger. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been sitting there, seething in silent fury over something completely made-up while The Missus favored me with “Gee, I wonder where he got that?” looks.

The next few days, our last before the moving van comes Monday to completely upend my apple cart, will be filled with more good-byes and last times. All the big ones are behind me now (bye Lee, Susie… sorry I never came up with cool nicknames for you) and the weekend ahead promises to be a grueling physical ordeal. Then there’s the cleaning, then the driving, then the waiting for all our shit in the world to rejoin us at the other end… should be plenty to keep me focused on looking forward in the short run.

I’m living every day as if it was my next right now and trying to savor every moment. There’ll be plenty of time in the future to wax nostalgic about Christmas Island; my final few days here should probably not be wasted in the pursuit of self-defeating melancholy.

Because that’s the beautiful thing about self-pity, isn’t it? There’s never a last time.