Bittersweet Goodbye

Every time I have had a goodbye in my life over the last ten years or so, it's been a bittersweet one. I'm always thankful for the experiences, and therefore bitter about having to say goodbye: I'm always thinking about how the bad stuff could be improved if I had only a few more days / weeks / months / years -- how things would change. How I would change, too. On the other side of that token, of course, is how I'm always looking forward to the next leg of my journey: the memories and experiences I'm going to have with the new thing coming into my life. I'm a firm believer of the phrase, "When one door opens, another opens." I've seen it ring true in my life so many times that being a doubter would be blasphemy. Oftentimes, we create our own next door -- like I did when I chose to move out of my 400-square foot apartment and into an 1100+ square foot apartment with my boyfriend.

Does that mean that I'm sitting here, alone, in my soon-to-be former apartment thinking of all the things I hated about this place? No. They're there, in the shadows, but they're not in the forefront of my mind. The few possessions that remain in this space surround me, whispering of all the memories we shared here: the laughter, the tears, the meals, the conversations, the noises that trickled in from neighboring apartments through the sieve-like walls, the guilt, the sense of accomplishment. The music that played as I would dance around while cleaning still echoes off the walls. Sure, I'm going to appreciate having working heat this winter, and nothing can beat having the other half of the bed being warm, but I have no hard feelings about this apartment. It served me well, for what it needed to. It gave me space to examine these wings I'm meant to fly on. It started me down the path of paring down what's truly important to me. (Hoping I can keep that up as I have nearly tripled my space.) I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic. And I can promise you, it's neither the first nor the last time I'll experience this bitterly sweet feeling.