seventeen days and counting

Well, not much has happened this week. Emotionally, I've been pretty fixated on working through Stephen leaving. (People who know me well enough know that I can get really attached to people really quickly, and this has been one of those things.) We met with some people from work for a farewell dinner on Tuesday night and ended up spending almost three hours at Larry's Pizza talking and laughing and remembering misleading first impressions. Wednesday night I met Stephen and Tony at Tony's house to eat cookies (the best I've ever made!) and play Worms with Tony's roommate and fiancee. It was really weird being at work without him, especially since I didn't even get to work next to Tony, who rounded out our happy trio. Stephen texted me Friday night and said he would be in yesterday morning on his way out of town. He came into the drive-thru and we hugged goodbye and his mom waved at me, and I was surprised by the knot I suddenly got in my stomach. Have you ever hugged someone goodbye, knowing that you would most likely never see them in person again? And I don't mean those people you said goodbye to on graduation day and didn't really care one way or the other about ever seeing again, I'm talking about someone that you want to keep seeing all the time but it's not going to happen. It's a bizarre, slightly overwhelming feeling to realize that.

To help me refocus and be more optimistic, I'll close with something Stephen told me before he left. We were working side-by-side and I was saying how unfair it was that we were just getting to be good friends but I might not ever see him again. Here's what he said.

"No no, someday we'll both be in some Wal-Mart in Wyoming, just shopping and we'll bump carts with each other and go, 'Oh my gosh, how have you been? It's been too long!' We'll see each other again."