Turns out that despite my desperate need and want to get out of this city, I'm still going to have to deal with the things, places and people I'm going to miss. Even though I can't handle living here much longer (and in fact, will not for much longer), having spent so much time here since birth inevitably means there are things I'm going to miss...no surprise, right?
The surprise for me is the fact that, despite my love-hate-mostly-apathetic relationship with my job...I'm going to miss it. Rather, I'm going to miss those long-term guests who check into my hotel and are there for so long that they become friends rather than guests. The kind of folks who don't just pass through the lobby, but stop to practice fake karate in the hall, or sit and have dinner at the breakfast tables so that I have someone to talk to on a boring night; the kind of people who build such a rapport with me that it's funny when they joke around with me, make fun of my insane chipmunk giggle or comment on my singing voice. They're the kind of guests who make their own coffee, who have picked up dead birds at my doorway when I was too squeamish, who think it's hilarious to tell Chuck Norris jokes and see how often they can get me to roll my eyes. These guests are special. These guests hug me goodbye, call me by preferred shortened-version of my first name, stand in the lobby to make me feel safer when there are sketchy other folks checking in and I am the only person employed by the company in the ENTIRE hotel and it's 10 oclock at night and someone else has called to warn me that the police are on their way for these sketchy individuals.
I had a random guest last night tell me that with our banter, our bickers and our laughs, that me and these guests seemed like a little family. I know the pangs that hit when I think about leaving are partly because of them, but I realize that they have to leave this city sometime, too. They don't live here and soon, neither will I.
Of course, they aren't all I'll miss. I'll miss my fam, more than words could say. And I'll miss my friends, who are a second family. I had a catch-up dinner with one of my very best friends tonight and as we talked about our hopes, our dreams, pondered life and the scariness of making new leaps out into the world with our eyes wide shut, holding our breaths and hoping for the best, I realized: despite how scared we are of going out on our own, of doing news things, of having the faintest outline of a plan at best...this is all something we need to do. She needs to apply that overseas teaching job, and I need to move and just fly by the seat of my jeans for a while.
Despite everything we're terrified of, in spite of everything we'll miss...it's our time to figure out us.
And really, for me, that's the biggest dream of all.
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