Cleaning Out The Fridge

Maple leaf imprints on sidewalk
Originally uploaded by flickrheather

There are only three days left until the big move. It has come to that awful point where almost everything I do, and everyone I see is for 'the last time', and I can't stop myself from noting the finality. The goodbyes accumulate.

Yesterday, a great group of friends took me out for sushi. We sat around eating salmon rolls, drinking oversized Kirin beers, and laughing until it hurt.

I think the way we deal with truly final goodbyes is similar to the way we often look at death. With furtive, sidelong glances. Refusing to stare it in the face until it is forced upon us, and then stopping only fleetingly, afraid of what will happen to us if we look too long.

I'm cleaning out the fridge, trying to use everything up. It's a departure from the regular routine, but I don't want anything to go to waste. Carrot soup, strange stirfry, banana bread with the last of the coconut, chocolate chips, chopped-up Easter bunny. It's a therapeutic exercise, tying up all the loose ends.

But people can't be tied up the same way. They tug at dangling heartstrings, refusing to be shoved out of mind.

It's a power greater than we mostly realize, the power of one person to influence the life of another, and it's amazing how long these impressions last upon the psyche. Even casual aquaintances stay with us, colouring the way we speak, what we think, who we are. Can you not think back over the hundred, maybe thousand people you've known over the course of your life, bring someone to mind, and come up with a startlingly clear vision of this person? How they spoke, what their laugh sounded like, what they found hilarious?

It's a gift, I think. A reflection of the inherent worth of each of us.

So, while I shield my eyes from the glare of these oppressive goodbyes, I'll remember that these people have been burned into my life. Beautiful and ghost-like impressions, left behind on the sidewalk after the leaves have blown away.