It has been pretty difficult to shorten the list of possible titles for this text to just those two, so I'm going to be liberal with myself and let them both be.
Here are some others that would describe (some of) the feelings within my chest:
3.-Perfect Things that Can't Be
4.-The Nostalgia of Air Views of a City You're Leaving Behind
5.-Goodbyes were Invented by the Devil
6.-Lonely Cats are Pitiful Beings
7.-Ever though that "Galway" kind of sounds like "go away"? // My Friends Moved to Go Away City
8.-On Pulled Out Roots that Dry and Die
9.-Crying around Corners (and Chests)
10.-Taking back steps I took forward (hurts)
11.-Last Post Until Further Notice
12.-Empty Houses
13.-Coming to Terms with the Uncontrollable Aspects of my Life /No
It will all make sense as the post develops, so I'll better get started.
I didn't say anything to most people, but it was a month last Thursday since I got to know that I have to leave Eire for an undefined time span. That one was a hectic week as well, filled with events such as the following:
WEDNESDAY Dean: "OhMyGodI'mPregnant"
THURSDAY Doctor day with my pregnant brother;
.1:Are you going to breastfeed?
.2:Coming back home after the whole day with no battery on the phone and finding 20 missed calls from Mom. Running to top up, calling, having to go back to Spain.
.3:Thinking that D&D would me my last one and wanting to die on my way back from it.
FRIDAY Hey, let's lose consciousness, I bet it's fun like.
Anyway, days passed by and the rush to leave decreased. I thought that would give me some time to come to terms with the idea and the situation at home, but, ermh, no, it didn't.
We finally moved away from the hellish house we were living in on the 19th of March. The new house is so very lovely but I'm not going to get into any details here because...
...Ben got offered the best job ever in Go Away city on the 20th of March. The starting date of the job was the 31st of the same month.
My brother is having the worst pregnancy ever, and I already had my flight booked for the 5th of April, so the initial idea of her staying in Cork if Ben got the job was quickly thrown away.
In the following week, we sealed a few gaps and then...
The goodbyes started. I hate them. I hate all the "It's not like it's forever"s, "You will be back soon anyway"s, "Go Away is not even that far away"s, "You'll see how you get to like it there"s, and "Your father will get better in no time"s.
Oh, there, I said it.
Ben and Dean left on Saturday morning. Oh, fuck. The only thing my cat and I have done since is to cry around corners. The house is so quiet I can't breathe. I even "slept" with Gwen last night! With my cat!
Now, today I went on with some more goodbyes. It was the Firetruck, and I've got to say life is the most unfair thing ever. We met in the city and then we went to his very fancy apartment overlooking the whole frigging town. And looking at the whole thing,at every single building, at the river and the marina and the tiny little streets,... it kept me from breathing.
Then, I managed to relax (a bit) and even if I was sad and down, we played around and cooked lunch and had it. It was remarkably yummy.
And everything was nice until we finished and there was nothing else to do but holding tight to each other so that the physical contact made up for the future absence of poking.
It was nice to hug forever like that, because it was something I couldn't do with Dean - either Ben was around saying "Go Away is not that far", or we were both too broken about parting for the hug to feel good.
But it was alright with the Firetruck because he was so serene, smiling his perpetual stupid smile at the infinite, and I could cry a little against his chest without it being too messy.
And still, in all that warmth, I could only think of how perfect Cork looked from the windows and how I can't stay, and of how perfect the hug felt and how it could only be a goodbye hug.
And then, he has walked me outside and held a Berlin umbrella as we hugged one last time under the rain, and after that, he has given me a bunch of tissues and said the umbrella is mine now. And I've walked away. Back "home". Holding an umbrella during the whole way probably for the first time ever.
When I first knew that I had to leave, I thought of it as pulling out my life's roots and planting it again carelessly, leaving all the tips out to dry. I also thought that it's not the first time I do that and that it never felt so bad before.
So I had to work on the metaphor a bit further.
It doesn't hurt to pull out your life's roots when they are buried in dry, sterile rocks or in debris. But the process is painful when they come out of the fresh, watered ground of a garden, specially if they were intertwined with other roots, of other lives.
Getting to the garden was a tough task, but it was done, but now, will all the flowers admit back an unattended hawthorn bush that left its place? Won't there be a beautiful rosebush on its place by the time it can come back?
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