Leaving

Today I left Ottawa, after four years and a degree. Good friends saw me off; some shook my hands, some patted my back in one of those hand-shake-hugs, others full out hugged, some offered meek goodbyes and sarcastic but truthful "Have a good life," comments; some cried and made me feel good for them doing it.

Since Wednesday my brother had been up, and we had been drinking in the afternoons and eating at Wing's and Philly's, a dinner that has a cute small Indian girl as a waitress who, in the past 3 days in a row that we've been there, has memorized what I was always about to order.

I had become, in my three last days there, a regular. I haven't really ever been a regular anywhere, except possibly that small restaurant in Beijing near my apartment that I used to write in.

I'm going to miss Ottawa. I used to always feel torn between Ottawa and Toronto, thinking I had a home in both places. I eventually learned that I had a life in Ottawa but no home; and a home and life in Ottawa; this makes it hard to leave.

It didn't help that I was driven home - by my dad - at sunset, while CBC Radio played an Earth Day special with songs like, What a wonderful world, and REM's It's the end of the world as we know it.

Regardless. People I care about know how I feel, and how I will see them still; I also suppose they all know that all this hasn't hit me yet, and that I'll try really hard not to let it.