The Sunday Scribble prompt for today was 'Goodbyes'. Who have you had to say goodbye to? For some reason I’ve written about goodbyes this week. Goodbye to the Midwest, D.P. -the laughing Buddha and D- the heroin addict waitress. It’s a week for goodbyes. When I saw the prompt I thought about my heroin addict friend that I had to say goodbye to. I also felt that I didn’t have to write today because I had done my submission. On the drive to work, I reconsidered. The deal I made with myself was to write 5 days a week Monday through Friday at the very least. It doesn’t matter if its crappy or good, just write. I have to keep an eye on myself, I can be slippery when it comes to keeping a commitment to myself.

So I thought about ‘goodbyes’ again. It’s the nature of who I am that I will say goodbye to a lot of people, often very young. It’s not by accident that I am acquainted with a lot of drug addicts and alcoholics. These people, by their their very nature, have a high mortality rate.

All the goodbyes I think about are sad. Kristen died from drugs, but also anorexia, her heart just finally gave out. Michael overdosed, Ray shot himself in the head, Joey is in prison forever. There are almost too many to list. Where are the happy goodbyes?

…and then I remembered, 9 years ago I said goodbye to the person I had become. That was a happy goodbye.

Update: I re-read this post and wondered what is that a picture of and what was I thinking when I included it? Then I remembered, it is a phoenix, as in a phoenix rising from the ashes- which was meant to represent me. It actually looks more like a turkey that's been thrown in the air while someone took its picture. That, too, is a fair representation of me.