Everyday Stranger

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

In just a few hours, my flight leaves. There is so much in my head and in my heart. I feel knotted up in balls, like half of me is absolutely thrilled to bits that I am starting fresh and the other half of me is broken at leaving behind a life I had, a Partner I had, a home I had.

I can't stop crying. Happiness, sadness, guilt, hope, loss, anger, love. The waterworks have been on full blast for the past 24 hours.

I moved to Sweden in November 1999. And now, as of today, I am leaving. Oh, I'll be back-there are logistics to take care of, boxes to finish packing, etc. But this is the biggest step I have ever taken, somehow even bigger than when I left Raleigh, North Carolina and headed for Stockholm that November evening.

So much has happened the past 5 years I can hardly breathe.

I met, loved, and lost Mr. Y.
I met, loved, and lost Partner Unit.
I got married.
I travelled the world.
I jumped out of an airplane.
I worked myself to the bone.
I lost my job.
I got a new one.
I tried to kill myself.
I survived trying to kill myself.
I went into psychotherapy, understanding for the first time in my life what's wrong with me.
I started to write.
Kim died.
I was pregnant, and then I wasn't.

It's like a whole life of experiences in that short time span. A whole life lived in 5 years, and now I am moving on to my next life, Life 6, the Life of a Cat.

I will say goodbye to my perfect and beautiful house, with the wall of pictures. There is one picture of every country we have been to, along with a framed print of Dr. Seuss's "Oh The Places You Will Go" dust cover in the center of the wall. Goodbye to the fireplaces and the hardwood floors. Goodbye to the high ceilings and glassed-in veranda.

Goodbye to my Partner Unit-I will always love you. I will never regret you.
Goodbye to my beautiful Collie Ed-you were the best dog ever. Now get off the couch.
Goodbye to my cats Maggie and Mumin-my sweet potatoes, you are so precious and loving. The trust you have in us was amazing.
Goodbye to my once a week curry lunches with Best Friend-you'd better come visit me, man, or I will kick your ass.
Goodbye to Sweden-thanks for having me. Thanks for teaching me so much. Thanks for helping me start to figure out who I am.
Goodbye to Helen Number 5-It was nice getting to know you, Helen. You have so many good things about you, and yet you have so many bad. I'm sorry for abusing you the way I did. I can't promise that Life Number 6 will be any easier on you, but I do promise that the ride will be interesting.

So with my over-stuffed suitcases, a confused heart, and a whole lot of hope, I head to the airport. And at lunchtime in Sweden, no one will know that a lone woman is travelling to a new life. In the US, you'll be sleeping soundly or eating breakfast. In Asia, perhaps you are opening the bottle of wine and looking for something good on tv. Everyone's lives follow their normal elipses, their dance of usual routines of love, family and hope, and I am airborne somewhere, headed to a place to give me new routines.

I'll be crying, most likely. Good tears, bad tears, anguish and hope. Once I set foot into the airport and Partner Unit drives away (and the parting is going to break both of us up to bits), then it has begun. Life Number 6.

And once the doors out of customs opens in Heathrow, in my minds' eye there is a brilliant white light that offers me anything I can find out of it. I can't see past the white light, I don't know what's there. It's almost like dying, going through the tunnel, and maybe in many ways that part of me, the old part of me, is dying.

And at the end of that white light is a man. A man who is waiting to meet me once I make it through, one who promised to meet me. A man who I hope knows how much I need him and how badly I need to make sure that he doesn't drop me or let me fall, since I am far more fragile than he thinks. When the automatic doors swing shut, I am leaving Sweden, Partner Unit, and Company X with Helen Number 5, and ahead of Helen Number 6 is England, Mr. Y, and Dream Job.

Life Number 6.
Meow.

I leave with the lyrics of Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You", which will be piping in my ears through my MD player, to keep me strong.

Of all the things I believed in
I just want to get it overwith
Tears form behind my eyes, but I do not cry
Counting the days that pass me by.

Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything that I knew.
You were the one I loved, the one thing that I tried to hold onto.

-H.