Goodbye

I am leaving New Orleans tomorrow morning. I want to say something about this, but I don't know what. I want to cry but I can't.

I finally did get it on with J a few times. It was a good experience, and he was very sweet to me. God knows I never had any illusions about him as relationship material. I made a very calculated decision to do it, and in a way I almost had to talk myself into it. We had a very warm goodbye. Really, this should have been the most enjoyable, pain-free affair anyone could have, and I still feel empty and alone after watching him walk away. Clearly I am not fit to ever be close to other people, because it takes so little to hurt me.

Anyway, it's not just J, of course. He's kind of a talisman for all my sadness about New Orleans. The rest is copied from an email I sent last night. I don't have the stomach to try to re-explain:

You know, it's my second-to-last night in New Orleans. I've lived here for eight and a half years, and I have only two people to say goodbye to, not counting a couple of friendly ex-coworkers. My friend D is close to me, but she's the kind of person who instinctively creates a lot of unnecessary drama. She's devastated that I'm leaving; I'm sad to say goodbye but I'm also a bit relieved because she's just too much for me right now. My other friend is a guy who I've know for almost as long as I've lived here. He always let it be known that he had a thing for me, and there was at least a spark of attraction on my part, but there were lots of good reasons not to act on it. However, I decided to have a little fling with him before I left, and so I did. It hurts my womanly ego a little bit that I am no longer the unattainable object of desire now that I have been obtained. But still, he was very sweet and kind to me and we were close for a moment and I'm glad I let myself be obtained. I just said goodbye to him. And now I am about to move myself to a new city where I know no one at all...

And the point is? I don't know. I'm not good at making friends or having relationships. I can't seem to sustain the kind of suffocating closeness that many people seem to need. D kind of wears me out. But I appreciate a kind of less clingy intimacy, with a lighter touch. However, by definition you can't cling to it, just let it go. I'm having a hard time with that right now. I'm having a hard time saying goodbye to a town I loved that never loved me back. I feel very alone and peripheral to everyone else on the planet, and I'm afraid I'm always going to be this way.

Life is a continual process of letting go, isn't it? I know that there are people who have profound spiritual experiences of oneness with everything, and I take some comfort in thinking that is true, even though I haven't experienced it.