An end
They are all still there, all the lost things, all the departed friends. The world of this moment was made by all the little dilemnas and mundanities and microscopic moments of grace that we faced in the past, last Tuesday or during finals week or in the long winter of 1803. If you existed, you nudged the world. If we went out for tacos or stayed up all night talking, you changed me, and I experience the world slightly differently because our paths crossed.
I am leaving Norman tomorrow, after so very many years here. As I pack, I can feel the Normans of all those years behind me, stretching out into some invisible horizon. I feel like if I turned around fast enough I could see them again - eat at long-dead restaurants, walk through the grass of paved-over fields, catch some MST3K with friends that departed a long time ago. There are so many people and so many things in my past here that were dear to me. I miss them all terribly. But they existed, and they made this present world and this present me by existing. They are all still there.
Goodbye Norman and past Normans. I love you a lot.
I am leaving Norman tomorrow, after so very many years here. As I pack, I can feel the Normans of all those years behind me, stretching out into some invisible horizon. I feel like if I turned around fast enough I could see them again - eat at long-dead restaurants, walk through the grass of paved-over fields, catch some MST3K with friends that departed a long time ago. There are so many people and so many things in my past here that were dear to me. I miss them all terribly. But they existed, and they made this present world and this present me by existing. They are all still there.
Goodbye Norman and past Normans. I love you a lot.