Friday, February 9, 2018

8 Minute Memoir, Day 44: Leaving

This one is dedicated to the love of my life.

I attended Northern Illinois University for my undergrad experience and so, lived in DeKalb for four years.  I spent 2 years living on campus (one year in Grant, one year in Neptune), two years living off campus--my senior year living with Tom, who had graduated from Loyola and who had moved to DeKalb to await the imminent completion of my degree.  Up until that point, though, we spent the previous three years doing the long distance relationship thing.

During the week I lived in DeKalb but on the weekends we lived together; most of the time I went to Chicago but occasionally we'd spend weekends in the cornfields.  I'd take the train from Elburn to the city, then the El up to campus, make the walk to the dorm or to the apartment.  We'd spend Friday through Sunday together, a regrettably short but always wonderful period of time together.  But Sundays, Sundays were always so hard, Sundays always meant leaving.

Especially when I was driving to the city and back...  choking back sadness as I drove Sheridan to Lake Shore Drive to Congress, navigating my way towards Interstate 88 with a desperate and deep desire and longing resonating in my being.  Leaving was always so hard.  I always felt it so acutely...  I spent the entire drive away from the city just aching, wishing with everything I had I was still back there, with him.

And then eventually the day came where... Sunday happened, and that night we brushed our teeth together, making each other laugh in the reflection of the mirror, and went to bed together, and we didn't have to say goodbye till next time, goodnight.  To say farewell with five days standing between now and the next time.  We woke up together on Monday morning: I went to class and he went to work.  The luxury, the delight, the contentment of a building a life together... after over a decade, it is always more rewarding and more reassuring and more wonderful than I could have anticipated.  The leaving, now, is only a distant memory.

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