The First Goodbyes

My trip is still months away, but I'm already saying goodbye to people I won't see again before I leave. I've spent the last two weeks in Montreal - I'm usually here two or three times a year doing freelance teaching work, and I'm at the end of my last visit. I also had a quick trip to Calgary, and I've got friends and history there too.

I lived in Montreal for 4 years from 1989 to 1993, and I've been doing freelance work in the city since 2000, so I've got a lot of close friends here. When I'm here I usually make time to see them for dinner, or to drink beer and watch the Habs, or just to connect somehow. Last weekend at the end of a fun evening of talk and tacos I left realizing that I really didn't know when I would see those people again, and it was a shock.

I feel like I've been shedding layers of myself since I first conceived of this plan. First I had to get used to the idea of leaving a job I've been at for more than ten years. Then I broke up with my boyfriend (Ok actually, inexplicably, he broke up with me. Seriously? I'm still not sure what happened there.) Then Henry got sick, and now he's gone too. In January I gave my notice at work, and they posted the opening, so the job is actually really gone. Soon - within weeks - my house will be on the market. But now the really hard stuff starts - saying goodbye to all the important people who are part of what makes me me. Calgary and Montreal are just the beginning.

I've got a lot of goodbyes ahead of me. I know that I'll see these people again, and I know that a year is a short amount of time, and it will go by incredibly quickly, but it's still scary. Soon there will be nothing extraneous left. No relationship, no dog, no job, no house, no friends, no family. It'll just be me and my passport and it will be really interesting to find out who I am then.