A journey always begins with a departure.
A good departure always ends with tears.
My last week in Seattle- I was blessed with many tearful embraces. Having traveled before, I knew I needed to soak up my home as much as possible before leaving. I spent my last month walking the streets I've walked for almost a year now. My home in Wedgewood- the Green World home with the Fanny Pack (we called ourselves hoping others would too).
The last few weeks, I felt like I was saying goodbye to everyone and everything over and over again. Every place I went I wondered if it would be the last. Every person I saw, I wondered if it was the last. My friends took me to bars bragging about my soon to come adventures. Strangers would buy me drinks exclaiming, "You're a saint! A saint! I'd never do that." The drinks would kick in; I'd get that look from a close friend across the table. The look that told me this is coming to an end for a while Mere. Tears follow, hugs, sobbing. Don’t mix booze with soon to come departures. It can get quite loud.
My last day of work as a barista in Seattle. A local, very "hip", coffee bar, cleverly titled "Grateful Bread". Was pretty uneventful. But after work, I stepped outside in my neighborhood (I work a few doors down from where I live) I run into a regular costumer of ours- Rob. Rob is a therapist who specializes in same sex and polyamerous couples. I explain to him I'm about to teach HIV prevention in Africa and hope to one day become a sex educator. We spend half an hour loudly talking about clitoral and uterine stimulation. With his hand gestures he shows me how it’s done. He tells me about the whole sex positive community he can introduce me to when I return. The whole time I’m thinking- only in Seattle. God I love it here.
I pass my work's competitors- Top Pot. A donut coffee bar we rival with across the street. I walk pass the Top Pot boys behind the counter one last time. With their matching facial hair, gauged ears, and tight jeans. Waving my arms in the air. They pretend to cry, knowing it’s the last time. I blow kisses. I pass the drug addict woman who walks up and down our street with her little minitcher pincher. I share a few words with a cute neighbor of ours who enjoys playing the drums. I come to our home. Embrace my roommates and greet our little white dog- Rumi- with "Oh hello! You are a little dog!" She knows the routine. It's a routine I have established with everyone. It’s my routine, my home, my community- that I realize im saying goodbye to.
My friends throw me a "Mere-a-thon" weekend long goodbye party. That just melts my heart right outta my body. We go to my favorite restaurant and my favorite place- the dog park.
It comes to my last day home. Before I leave for my other home- Indiana- for a month, then Swaziland for two years. We go to Gas Works to watch that lazy summer sun set beneath Seattle's skyline. As Christine and Charlie roll down the hill running into innocent people I continue to soak every moment in. Christine with her now grass stained jeans crawls over to me and embraces me again. She unlike everyone else cannot hold it in for the airport. She unlike everyone else breaks my heart with that look; I cave in and cry with her. My roommates/friends get a van and we all pile into it, drive me to the airport where I presume they'll just drop me off in that little ever moving, on going, circle of hell outside the airport. No. They pay to park. They come in. We get to security where we part.
As much as I dislike flowers (my friends knowing this therefore abstaining from getting me any), Charlie hands me a couple of purple ones and tells me to bring them with me to Africa. This I love. A line of loved ones awaits me to hug each and every one of them. I feel like I need to advise each of them with each hug. I go the love route instead. Hysterical embrace after another. Morgen tells me, "You have touched all of our lives so much, and I know you will touch other's in Swaziland. I’m proud of you." Marie thanks me for listening and being there for her. Stefan tells me I am the heart of the family. Charlie says he will hold his breathe until I return. Erin, who I've only really known a month, tells me the sweetest most beautiful things. Then comes my girl- my girl Christine. Christine tells me, "You have rescued me from my issues with my father my family. You have pulled me out of it all. Thank you." I hold her in my arms. She was the hardest to leave. She is the hardest to leave.
Stefan exclaims, "OK group hug." As we're all holding each other Erin hands me a book of bulldogs and a card they had all signed. Perfect. Christine then says, "Mere, we've been selfish. It's time we give you up to the world. To help other people like you've helped us."
I grab my bags in the middle of an empty airport. The security guard looks at me and says, "Your friends really love you." All I can think is how much I love them. In between sobs I remove my shoes, my laptop, I look over my shoulder and see all of them holding each other, sobbing. I shout, "Seriously, you're going to watch me do this?!" They respond, "WE LOVE YOU MERE!" Before I walk through the detector I throw my arms in the air
(Very Nixon like- yikes) blow a kiss and shout I LOVE YOU. I walk through the detector. I’m gone.
Carrying my pack, I reach the underground bus that will take me to the appropriate terminal. I stand there looking into the glass doors- at my reflection. It's just you and me now. Alone- but so far from it.
