the people collector

August 9, 2006

It's time to go.

Leaving almost anything is difficult for me. I'm one of those people with a cluttered life... I don't mean cluttered as in messy, and it's not for a lack of cleanliness. I have a hard time letting go of anything, whether it be people, old CD's, books I will probably never read again or trinkets that for one reason or another used to hold some unique significance to me. Between all of those, it's mostly just people.

I am a people collecter. Some people collect beanie babies, others collect their stamps or old fashioned model cars. But me? I collect people. I revel in memories of people, the outcasts and the beautiful, the ones that are going places and the ones that are going nowhere, the bold and the meek alike. My soul rests in the comfort of knowing that I have spent every day investing myself into the lives of others.

So I suppose it's natural that now, upon the leaving of the place where most of the people I love remain, that I feel a sort of disconnectedness with the idea of leaving them. Like everyone else is staying while I'm taking a step in another direction, unsure of whether returning to this place will ever be in my future again.

Loving people is such a funny thing, in a completely serious way. You live your life surrounded by them, guided by them, befriended by them, betrayed by them and loved by them. They each make you who you are, their actions shaping you in a different way. Life consists of the making, breaking, changing and letting go of relationships, so it's odd that letting go of them sometimes feels so hard. There will obviously be the whole-hearted attempt to still know people back home as well as you always did... but I know that things change. I can only hope that I made a memorable difference in at least somebody's life while I was here.

I think that's all any of us could ask for.