Friday, February 02, 2007


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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sad to read, but glad you did have at least one happy Goodbye.

Kamsin said...

A thought provoking post. I guess it is the nature of goodbyes that they are rarely happy. Thanks for posting.

m.m.crow said...

hey
i've been really enjoying your writing. keep it up.... you've got some great stories, a unique way of telling them and, from the sound of it, a thousand good characters to write about.

gautami tripathy said...

Great to keep up with that writing. I try to poetry each day. Sometimes it just gets kind of blocked.

I can't say goodbye to my writing..LOL!

gautami
rooted.

Panic in New York said...

Judging by your friends I would say that your picker is broke. K seems alright even if she is a bed hog.

JHS said...

Hard to reconcile so many goodbyes, isn't it? But then, it is the nature of some folks' journey, apparently. Very thoughtful post.