Unexpectedly Emotional

This morning has been... kinda rough. My cats decided to torture me by waking me up at 5am, and I'm now getting to the point where my sleep deficit is moving from 'worrisome' to 'frightening'.

My friend Lea over at Ivy Lea(gue) is in town because her mother had to have a serious surgery, and I offered to take her to breakfast and then to the airport this morning. On the way I decided to turn in the last of my (overdue) library books and to be honest, it was really really hard. Other than the $12.60 I owe in library fines, I now no longer have any official relationship with my alma mater.

There I was, standing at the book drop before the library opened, unwilling to part with my precious books, and I couldn't help but compare the situation to a breakup- sneaking over to the ex's place when you hope he isn't home to leave his things on the front porch, avoiding painful confrontation, and walking away feeling like you just left a piece of your soul exposed on a door mat. I stared at my books for a moment, teared up, dropped them in the repository, and just felt profoundly empty.

Maybe it's the lack of sleep, maybe it's that I haven't really prepared to start saying goodbye to things, but as I was digesting these thoughts on the way to get Lea, I hadn't really thought about how much harder it would be to say goodbye to actual people. The reality hit me as we were standing in line to get tacos, and it felt like getting hit by a truck. I managed not to cry until after I dropped her off, but it was definitely hard.

The good news is this: I've got a couple of hours of research to work on this morning before Nae'ole gets up, and once he does we're going on a mini vacation in the hill country for a couple of days. If I can get over the "wow, I'm probably never going to get to do this again" thoughts, then I think it will cheer me up considerably!