don't be a stranger

i can admit that i'm a sentimental person. i probably still have about 91% of the ticket stubs from shows i've attended. i press flowers from different countries i've visited. i even make sure to save the best text messages to fawn over later. but two days from the end, i still haven't really gotten misty over leaving this job.

maybe it's because it doesn't *feel* real. i haven't known whether i was coming or going half the time for the last two years, so this almost feels routine. the coworkers just discovered a new take out place just in time for me not to sample the entire menu, which saddens me. but i still joked around and laughed with them, not realizing because of the shifts it'd be the last time i'd sit with most of them. it's going to be sad not seeing them much, if at all, anymore.

but i didn't start really getting blue until i was riding the shuttle back to the fortress (near which i have discovered a nice place to put my car so i don't have to troll around for a spot and give half my paycheck to the city in tickets) with my favorite driver, roy. this guy is what i imagine cc's little boy will look like when he's about 68. except he's a little unkempt. roy's a real sweetheart who's missing a few teeth and had to have a triple bypass earlier this year because his diet includes giant bags of potato chips and pop by the liter. i told him that thursday would be it for me and he asked if i was going on vacation. then after i said, "nope. after thursday i won't get to ride on your shuttle anymore," he asked me if i had a computer and advised me to "go on that computer and find yourself another job that pays twice as much, and then come back and ride my shuttle and tell me all about it."

i was thinking about what it would take to actually swing that, and wondering if roy will even still be with us when i could manage it. because it's during the goodbyes when we make promises that no one would hold us to as a way of expressing how much we care. and that's what made me really sad.