I hate leaving.

[hmpf]

I used to love new beginnings, but new beginnings are based on some kind of ending preceding them.

Leaving places means leaving people; in many cases, thanks to the slow pace of my friendships, even before I really get to know them. The regret is often more a regret for something that might have been than for something that was. I hate that in particular: the feeling that I'm leaving without having made the best of the time I had with the people that crossed my path.

Even worse: it's my own frelling fault. My 'social life', or lack thereof here in Birmingham, was shaped from the beginning by the awareness that I would be leaving all too soon. Rather than getting emotionally involved, and risking the pain of being parted all too soon, I thus kept my distance, even more so than I usually do.

Even so, I let myself get close to some people. I am, after all, only human, and can't go completely without human contact. I will miss beebee852001 and tiniago when I'm back home, and probably ommadon. I will miss Scapekid - though she certainly is 'crazy' enough to fly to Germany on a whim, so there's some comfort... ;-) I will also miss, in a more abstract sense, Sci-Fi Soc - will regret having missed the chance of getting to know you all a bit better. Likewise, I will miss some of my fellow archaeology and Erasmus students. I did not even say goodbye to most of them; I wasn't close enough to any of them to warrant a real goodbye. What do you say, anyway, when you know you will never meet again? "Have a good rest of your life"?

So many missed chances.

It is a familiar pattern. It happened when I left Kiel. To some degree it happened when I left Hanau.

More painful in the long run, though, are of course the friendships that were more than just potential. Losing a real friendship hurts, and it takes years to get over the pain. I am still mourning friendships that drifted apart after high school. (Only in one case have I ever really stopped loving a friend.)

And yet it is so easy to lose a friendship. Geographical distance can do the trick so quickly. So can changes in lifestyle or outlook (though that is a slower, more gradual kind of loss).

Not every loss is a real loss, of course. Sometimes you drift apart, but not completely, and after a while you adjust to the new status of your relationship. I suppose that is what happens to most long-term friendships at some point.

Sometimes you get closer again after a while, as well.

My friendships back at home, I feel, are currently in some kind of limbo. I feel a great deal of attachment to my friends; I miss them very much. I dream of them all the time. Yet I have gotten out of touch. It is so easy to get out of touch if you can't devote hours each day to writing e-mails, or spend a fortune on phone calls. I have neglected many people almost criminally.

It's time I got back there and made up for it.

But I have nightmares that when I get back, everything will be different... 'Terra Firma' different. There have been deaths and weddings while I was gone, and shortly, there will be a birth (or maybe has already been). Everybody's lives have moved on. (Except mine, it sometimes seems to me.)

Will we still 'fit'?


***

I had a Methos plot bunny related to this feeling today. (It's a bunny I have had intermittently over the years - probably because the
feeling is nothing new to me.) Immortality means constantly leaving, and holding back, and keeping your distance. It also means constant new beginnings, of course. I wonder what is more dominant - the endings, or the beginnings?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi hmpf!

I can assure you that "real Friends" will still be there for you even if you don't write them the occasional email every now and then. They refuse to forget you as you don't forget them. ;)
At least that's what i experienced from persistently neglecting almost all of my friendships with people for months (and years sometimes). What is very relieving for me: Most of my friends know me well enough to know what to expect from me - which does not include regular calls and mails with personal updates. But whenever i feel the need to talk to them, they are still there for me.

And i don't own a live journal like you, where all of your friends with an internet connection can stay posted.
I am quite confident that noone here is expecting further "personal care" from you. The knowledge that you're keeping everyone in your thoughts should be enough. ;)

Of course sometimes lives and interests move apart. One experiences that there is not much left to tell each other. But that is alright then. People change - people move on. No need to worry about that. No need to worry about not fitting.

I share your feelings about missed opportunities though. I get this feeling quite often. And i always blame myself. But that's life.. or Murphy (http://www.reallifecomics.com/daily.php?strip_id=705).

Cheers, Nager (keeping you in his thoughts)

Thanks, Nager!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I feel really strange. I'm really, really looking forward to see you guys again - probably in about five weeks! :-)

But I also have just spent another evening with my new Scapers tiniago and beebee852001 and that was such great fun and *they* are such great fun... and there's Scapekid and elliejane, etc.

And I'm sort of already missing them in advance. It hurts.

I guess I'll have to be bad to the environment and make frequent RyanAir trips to Britain... there's a con we might scape in Hinckley in February, and there's WorldCon in August '05... and maybe I can make some more connections in the jewellery trade here and get some kind of job or whatever for next summer, or something.

I just don't want my ties with this country and the people I know here to be severed as quickly as the ones I had with Kiel were.