Leaving Lubbock: Part 2

I have known that I was a connector for as long as I can remember. As a toddler, I had standing lunch dates with the old men who came into our restaurant. I remember being a little kid at the New York State Fair and climbing into an exhibit with the Tiniest Woman in the World because we were similarly sized & I wanted to chat. On any given day now, you can catch me at Costco cutting up with the pharmacy tech, Patrice, or maybe across the parking lot, chatting with my Starbucks barista bestie, Roberto. Maybe it’s because I’m someone who has heard words like “bossy,” “intimidating,” “cold,” “bitchy,” “hard,” and many more as descriptors since childhood. Maybe it’s because I have tested as perfect-score “E” on Myers Briggs more than once. Maybe I’m just that great, okay? Whatever it is, I often find myself making a point to connect with whoever I find in close proximity.

It probably isn’t a brain-teaser, then, to figure out why I am such an emotional basket case about leaving Lubbock. Even though I knew when I came back in 2016 that this wasn’t forever, I can only describe what I’m feeling as dreadful excitement. Excitement because who wouldn’t be excited for a promotion of a job new city, closer to family, on the water, etc. etc. etc.? Dreadful because how do you up and alter connections that have sustained you for 5.5 years, almost half of which has been in a global pandemic? As a person who has quite literally attempted to Irish exit a party I was hosting in my own 800 sq. ft. apartment, goodbyes aren’t my jam, and especially not when they’re this heavy.

Because my brain is the way it is, it’s separated these goodbyes into a couple different categories:

Certainly there are some that are easiest, right? The flakes. The colleagues who make your days infinitely harder. The people you simply don’t vibe with but haven’t explored why. Cool, yeah, ta ta for now (and forever and ever amen).

Then you have the friend/acquaintance goodbyes. The faculty and staff who know I got Minnie mid-COVID because we Zoomed into one another’s houses, but who also probably mispronounce my name in conversation. The ones who have known me since I was a young whippersnapper here in 2012 and let me live to tell about it. The people I’ve met in Facebook groups that support my politics out here in the Abbot’s Republic of Tejas. The casual dates that turned into friendships. The friends of friends who embraced the loud, tattooed, foul-mouthed Yankee, at least in social settings. These vary in my brain from requiring no goodbye at all to tearing up thinking about certain folks.

Lastly, it’s the core unit, which brings me all the tears all the time. To quote good ol’ boy Rodney Atkins: These are my people. The coworker who became my person. The one who decided she would be my friend then waited 6+ months for me to decide to reciprocate. The friend I cannot be left to my own devices with for fear of there not being enough bail money for both of us. The not-boyfriend who has made me an infinitely better human for the rest of my life. The undergrad friend I reconnected with in a Lubbock Walmart after 10 years apart. The youngins from a variety of gyms who have become like the gaggle of younger sisters I didn’t ask for but could never replace.

This weekend, I’ve invited pretty much everyone from the latter 2 groups to come together to get all our goodbyes out at once. I’m a glutton for punishment; what can I say? Truly, there’s a part of me that wants to roll out without a single look in the rearview. Shoot, if you asked me how and when I’d leave when I arrived in 2016 that was the goal. Come, get some experience, GTFO, and never look back. Now, if you see me this weekend and never before knew I even possessed tear ducts, just hug me and shut up. I suppose I’ll end with some mushiness from Winnie the Pooh because, my lordt, does it fit: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”