You pack
up your life into two piles: yes and no. Essential and non-essential. You send that favourite dress you wore to your friend’s birthday to the op shop, push it into a bag before you think about it too much and how great you felt that night as you danced and were tanned and all felt well with the world as you all turned twenty-one.

You throw
away a lot. You never liked to have too much stuff because stuff is cumbersome and bad for the environment so instead you get weirdly sentimental about the small things: the painting on that birthday card, the words written inside. That picture you tore from Time Magazine because it was a Texan farmer who somehow looks exactly like your Dad. Goodbye.

You hug.
There is a lot of hugging when you leave because it feels like the only thing you can do to mark small momentous occasions. Like the time your friends got engaged or promoted. Hug hug hug. Drink drink drink. Our glasses clink together as we hug and pour and pack and leave.

You drive
to the beach. Past the first house you ever lived in with the creepy landlord and spiral stairs where you slept in a Harry Potter cupboard. You drive past this to the beach and walk along it, reach the end, turn around and go back, get to the car and think oh well I guess that’s that then. I guess I’m leaving.

You go out
for drinks. To a garden bar for people say goodbye and your friends come. The lights are luminous and the flowers pretty. Everyone wants to see you again for one, last, ceremonious time - there are still things to be shared, moments to be had. But this is it, you think. You go to the bathroom and realise that your heart is not heavy at this party because you are now the one leaving and not being left behind. You think of this as you order another drink and smile about all the things that have happened in that place.

You visit
your friends. It reminds you of when you moved into a hostel at uni and you spent your days just visiting people like wards in a fun, non-sick hospital. And you go round to houses and drink tea and eat the treats they’ve made for your food allergies and you sit and remember all the things you said and did together over all that time. And then time shifts forward and you must go to see another friend before it gets dark.

You say
your last goodbyes. And other things you had put in a careful place in the back of your mind because you thought you’d be around forever to articulate them. Written words don't do it justice and it all seems pretty anticlimactic - standing on the street corner with everyone passing by. There are tears in your eyes and running down the back of your friend's shoulder. And then you turn and leave. You have to sit in your car for a while before you are ok to drive.

And then you leave
and your plane leaves. And you thought you’d feel something. A hug coming on, perhaps. But there is a stranger in the seat next to you, they have their iPad out playing Candy Crush and are disinterested in the fact that you have no returning flight. You spill your complimentary drink on your travel pants and realise you no longer have a washing machine to wash them in. Amongst other things.

So instead all you can do is look out the window, open and close your eyes to take snapshots of landscape until it’s gone
and you arrive
somewhere new.