Goodbyes are such sweet Sorrow

*something that I will never be able to tell my group.  so i’m letting it all hang-out here instead, lest I go crazy.  this is my hole in the ground.  and this is where i will bury this. 

I should tell you that the past 18 months have been a blur.  Although I’ve been bracing myself for this eventuality, there’s this melting poignancy inside that’s begging to be recognized. 

I am gonna miss you. 

Let me say that again. 

I am gonna miss you. 

You’ve never seen me distraught over one of you leaving.  I’ve always taken everything in stride; telling you that she’s not actually leaving, she just transferred cubicles.  I had to believe that myself.  Although there have been times when we go out and I would catch myself just in time when I’m about to ask you why there’s one of you missing.  I can’t tell you how many times I bit my tongue to keep myself from asking that question.  Or how many times I come in every morning, pass by her cubicle and sometimes wonder if she’s still sitting there.  Though I didn’t show it, it seemed to me like I lost a child.

I cannot be overly sentimental.  I always tell myself.  It’s how things are designed.  Two years max.  And that’s it.  Time to go.

It just feels so damn weird to realize that this time, it’s my turn to go.  And it’s not even 24 months yet.  But They want me to go.  They say I’m more needed somewhere else. 

When They wanted me to be with you 18 months ago, I felt a mixture of delight and anxiety.  Delight because I’ve always dreamed of belonging to a group, a family if you will.  I’ve been alone most of my life and I wanted to be surrounded by living, breathing, thinking beings.  I was anxious at the same time because I knew that the time I will have with you is limited.  I was scared that I may grow too emotionally attached and that parting may prove to be too difficult a task.

But I decided to live for the moment and let the future sort itself out.

You have been wonderful.  True, we’ve never really gone out much, but blame that on your sisters who were so productive with their family life that they had to get pregnant all at the same time.  How can we really go out when we had three backward bending ladies to look out for?  But whatever we lacked in nocturnal pursuits, we surely made up in everyday laughter.  You were, are, my family.

And now it’s come to this.  I am leaving you.

It’s almost unthinkable for me to be uttering these words, but I am.

They wanted me to fly.  I cannot continue to be a “big fish in a small pond”, They said.  They wanted me to spread my wings. 

Why does moving on and moving up have to be a butterfly experience?  Why do I have to come out of my cocoon?  Why does it have to be so goddamn hard?

My anxiety has been confirmed.  I have grown so fond of you that leaving feels like being torn from limb to limb. It’s excruciating.  I’m losing you.  I’m losing my family.

I should tell you that you have been an encounter in my life that won’t be repeated.  I should tell you that I valued every exchange, every smile, every conversation that we had.  At one point or another, I probably will. 

But for now, let me just tell you that this is how things are designed, that although I have been with you for less than two years, there is a business need for me to be somewhere else.  And that’s it.