My hometown always seemed like such a small place. The house I grew up in occupied a small corner of Terryville, beyond which was a world that was infinite in expanse. I was one of the few from my graduating class that was actually going out to see it--beyond the small corner of Connecticut, beyond New England itself--3,000 miles to the other side of the country.
The last few days before I left for the University of Arizona were a series of goodbyes, said over and over again in so many different words that all meant the same thing. You say "goodbye" with the expectation that you're going to see the person again, and so every goodbye I said always included the reminder that I was going to be back, very, very soon. The fall semester lasts only four months until Christmas break. In the grand scheme of things four months is nothing.
Except that it would be the longest amount of time I'd ever been away from everyone I knew. Since meeting them I had always been down the street or just across town, and now I was going to be in Tucson, Arizona (which in terms of distance might as well be at the center of the Earth).
------------------------------ I went into a Subway to get a meatball marinara grinder as my last meal (even though with all the restaurants on campus at the university I was probably going to eat better there than I had in my entire life). Anna, who I had known since at least seventh grade--it's so far back my memory can't pinpoint the exact time--was working. We shared bus rides as underclassmen in high school, back when she would tell me all her attempts to seduce high school guys and get into as many parties as she could. She had changed a lot over the last few years. I came to know her as one of the last few truly compassionate people there are in this world.
We said our usual hello's and she asked me when I was leaving for school. "I leave tomorrow," I told her.
There was a pause during which all she did was stare into my eyes with complete disbelief. "You're kidding," was what she came up with at last. We had planned to go out to lunch sometime to talk and catch up with everything that was going on each other's lives in the last few months. We had planned but had never gotten around to doing it. Now we were out of time. She started rambling a sad litany of all the sorrows that are associated with someone leaving for a long time to go far away--how she was going to miss me, how we never got a chance to hang out, how I shouldn't be going so far away. And on. And on.
I assured her that I was coming back. I was going to come back to see her, have lunch with her, talk with her, be with her. It was only after I repeated all these points several times that she said, "Okay." I told her I was going to enjoy the sandwich because I knew it was made specially by her for me. I hugged her over the counter and said goodbye.
------------------------------ My grandparents stopped by to visit me that evening. My grandmother hugged me, told me to be careful out there but to have fun while I was in Arizona. My grandfather gave me a firm handshake, slipping me a rolled-up twenty dollar bill hidden in-between his fingers. They reminded me of all the comforts that come from having family to look after you. We said our final goodbyes and then they left.
------------------------------ Eric called me on my cell saying he wanted to say goodbye to me before I left. Eric and I had started to get to know each other while he was dating Anna. They were both compassionate people, but few people knew that about Eric. He struck fear into a lot of people, but I'm not sure how. He appeared in one of my videos, The Compassion of Miguel del Fuego, as Raul the Douche(bag). When he was tied up after school with sports I took Anna home in his place. I was one of the few guys he ever trusted being around Anna--most others avoided any possibility of incurring his wrath. When they broke up I offered my condolences, and Eric told me I was probably the only guy who was genuinely sorry to hear that the ravishing Anna was single again.
Both Eric and Anna pulled into my driveway, one car behind the other. Eric gave me bits and pieces of gossip about stuff that had happened over summer vacation. I had always been low-key about the Terryville social scene and didn't show up at a lot of parties, so I rarely knew what was going on with other people. We talked about college (Eric was going to Northeastern; Anna was entering her senior year of high school) and how long our vacations were (I was the one getting screwed over, always having to leave weeks earlier before anyone else). I gave Anna a proper hug goodbye this time and Eric and I did the kind of over-the-shoulder pat-on-the-back that is popular with my generation. We said our goodbyes as they returned to their cars to back out of my driveway.
------------------------------ Bri and Trish were both very close friends. They had both appeared in Judak, were on the girls volleyball team together (Bri as a star player, Trish and I as managers), and hung out together during the hour and a half break we had in the middle of the school day. Trish and I were so similar in our wit, sarcasm, and mannerisms that people often joked that we might as well have been siblings.
On my last night in Terryville we all went out to Friendly's (which is the east coast equivalent of a Denny's or something like that) for our last supper together. Trish wasn't leaving for St. Joseph's College for another week, and Bri still had half a month before she took off for Plymouth State in New Hampshire. I ordered my usual Sprite and a side of fries, which is a nice light snack if you don't want to order a whole meal and don't want to drop more than a few bucks on food. Alone Bri, Trish, and I were eclectic humorists--together we were eccentric to the point of being committed to an institution. It was a two hour laugh-fest. Afterwards we stopped by Trish's house so I could say goodbye to Trish's mom, Carlene. Trish sometimes remarked that her mom loved me more than she did.
I brought them both over to my house afterwards because neither of them had ever come over. I'm not sure why. They just never had. We talked about all the funny things that had happened to us in high school. Most of the stories I had heard two or three times before, but I didn't mind listening to them again. Around 2am I hugged them both goodbye and they left.
------------------------------ Saying goodbye to my girlfriend was quite possibly the hardest thing I ever had to do. Holly and I started dating a few weeks before my senior year of high school ended. She was older than me by a year, about to enter her sophomore year at Newbury College in Boston. She was the most beautiful, most random thing to ever happen to me. Trish introduced me to her, and after we started talking and got to know each other it turned out that we had a staggering number of things in common--including a passionate infatuation with each other. For the last couple months we had spent every available moment together, hitting up restaurants for lunch, watching movies, getting ice cream, going for walks in the park. In short, she was the kind of girlfriend I always wished I had while I was in high school.
When I stopped by to see her before I had to leave to catch my afternoon flight, it was the saddest moment I ever experienced. She cried more over me than any other woman in my life. I told her to enjoy her last few weeks of summer vacation, enjoy her fall semester, and remember that I was going to be back again soon. Soon it was going to be Christmas, and I was going to be with her again, drinking hot chocolate, watching our favorite Christmas movies, celebrating New Years. And soon there would be another summer vacation, another long break that we could spend together. I was going to write to her, email her, call her. A day wasn't going to pass where I didn't think about her. With tears filling both our eyes, we kissed each other goodbye.
I never hated myself more than the moment after I closed her door to leave, knowing that I was the one who had made the decision to go so far away for college.
------------------------------ Shortly before I had to go Bri left me a message saying, "Don't leave me, Stefan."
I replied to her by saying, "Oh my sweetest Brianna--I am never going to leave you. I may be physically apart from you for a time, but we shall always be together, connected by the great and merciful powers of Heaven and Buddha that guide us all."
And with that, I left Terryville and everyone and everything that had made up every facet of my life for the last eighteen years. Like an impending doom, like a bittersweet symphony, like a painful release, like a perilous journey, like a reluctant but necessary step forward, like a joyous sadness, it all came to a close.