goodbyes

Sometimes, goodbyes are really, really hard. Like when you’ve just spent six weeks with some of the most fascinating, intelligent, and wonderful people… and now you’re leaving them, without knowing when and if you’ll see them again. It’s quite distressing.

We were crammed together for six weeks: living together, writing together, reading the stuff that fell out of each other’s heads, eating the same dreadful food, staying up late and having oddball conversations, and just lazing about on the grass to enjoy the sun. It was like being part of a big, eccentric, and slightly unwieldy family, one that leaves their doors open at all times so people can wander in and out, and feel comfortable turning up for a conversation wherever. There was this delicious camaraderie, this feeling that we were a band of scrappy adventurers ready to carry each other across deserts and battle pirates (or just give each other plenty of tea on nights when the reading went on and on and on). It was a comfortable place to throw yourself into all the unmarked spots on the map.

I’m sitting in the airport right now, and I miss them already. I saw them just a couple of hours ago, but the anticipation of not being able to fall asleep on the couch while listening to Dan and Emily discuss humanity, or walking out to the beach with Damien to watch the paragliders, or having tea with Kat when our stories are being lame… the anticipation of not having that makes me miss them incredibly.

Right. The maudlin is happening. Time to get into a book.