Is it really hard to say goodbye, or just hard to envision what comes once the words are spoken and you’ve stepped through the door of a place you may never again see?
Is it easier to do this when you are younger, because you likely have a new destination, job, and apartment awaiting your arrival? At my age—which you likely know is 65 if you’ve read these essays for long—simple goodbyes don’t seem to really be hard-wired farewells, but more akin to a sense of stepping forward to new adventure.
Recently, I said goodbye to my home in Waynesville. Susie and I had bought our cottage there when I was new in the job of editing this magazine, and it is where she died several years later. (That was a hard goodbye.)
As I mentioned last edition, maybe the difficulty of saying goodbye to that house was more saying farewell to the ferns and hostas, the red hot pokers, and the crocosmia that spread way beyond where I had planted them. I had chosen many of them to distract Susie as the rust of dementia clogged the fine watch-like mechanisms in her brain.
(The fact that I likely have spent my entire life as the poster child for undiagnosed ADHD allows me to interrupt regular programming at this time to point out that Google does confirm that crocosmia “multiplies rapidly, sending out underground runners to create massive, flowing clumps that can eventually take over a garden bed if not divided every few years.”)
Aren’t you glad I looked?
I am just visualizing my next period of life as one where I don’t have to face a work-related deadline, for this is the last edition of SMLthat I will edit. For the first substantial moment in more than 40 years, this may be the last time I am employed by what we fondly call “a print product.”
I’ve discovered I enjoy not setting the alarm to wake in the morning unless I have an appointment at the VA or need to make it to the airport for a long-planned vacation.
But, no more deadlines?
Well, I can always tell people I have do-the-laundry deadlines, fix the chainsaw deadlines, a transplant-the-oak-leaf-hydrangea deadline, or a deadhead-the-dried-daisy-deadline.
I will be trying to do work on two homes in Buncombe County that are in the family, and I am going to Turkey in October to get dental implants.
I’ve been fantasizing about a Christmas trip to London and Vienna to hear seasonal music from people who really know how to provide it.
I am also going to be present (as in, I’m here for you) as my 14-year-old dog shadow walks his way through dementia.
I am going to explore the idea of buying half a beef. I bought the prerequisite freezer earlier this year. The thing is, will it get eaten? Will the steaks sit there slowly getting freezer burn?
Oddly, I’m tinkering with the concept of traveling to Colorado for regulated psilocybin (mushroom) therapy. (See previous mention of “poster child for undiagnosed ADHD.”)
I also want to ride Amtrak more. Years ago I got an Amtrak credit card, and I have earned thousands of points that can be used towards the purchase of train rides. I want to take a train from Atlanta, through New Orleans, to San Antonio, to go visit an old friend who is “putting the twang back in country music” playing in honky tonks in the Texas Hill Country.
I want to ride a train through the Rockies, going west sitting on one side of the train and then returning east gazing out at the opposite side of wilderness.
I want to walk the Pacific beach near Pedasi, Panama, heading to the harbor to see what the operators of the fishing boats caught that day.
I want to return to Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France, as a few hours there was not enough.
Is it really hard to say goodbye, or just hard for some to envision what comes next?
I cherish the last nine years spent writing for you and choosing story topics for you to enjoy.
Thank you for reading.
—Jonathan Austin