Goodbyes

Once more I find myself sitting here trying to find some order in the jumble that is currently my brain. Bear with me. As I walked around Berkeley this morning (I finally remembered to pick up more cat food.), I had so many thoughts of what I might say.

I thought about my upcoming move. I will finally have room for my piano. (Crap! Still need to call the piano movers about picking it up from my mom's house.) My dad bought it for me as a birthday gift when I turned eleven. I campaigned for six months to get it.

It started in Georgia during the previous summer though. My dad's hometown is around 10,000 people or so. The one television in my aunt's house stayed on NBC in the afternoons for soap opera viewing. I was tired of reading. And so I announced that I was bored. My aunt went looking through her piano books until she found the first beginner book. At dinner, I announced that I had finished the book. So she pulled out the next one. It went this way for a couple of weeks until I could read music. I spent the rest of that summer picking my way through all the other books in between reading books.

I loved playing the piano so much that I decided that I really needed my own piano at home. My mother will tell you that my father got the cheap end of the deal. Right after I received the piano, I then began the campaign for lessons. Five years worth.

I haven't played that much since I graduated from college. Even though I was no longer taking lessons, I kept my books with me. And when I was feeling really stressed out, I would find an empty practice room and play until my hands hurt too much.

As I remembered all of this, it dawned on me that today I was starting to say my goodbyes. I have loved these past four years in Berkeley but now it's time for something new.

I had just assumed that my aunt would be around to see the next phase in my life. (My cousins decided to end life support and my aunt passed away this morning.) I've been talking to her on a near daily basis for years. A year ago there were three people to whom I talked on my way to work -- my father, his younger sister and his older sister. Now two of those three are gone and mornings feel so empty.

The last nine months have been hard. And I'm getting tired of saying goodbye.

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