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I don't believe in permanence. Call it learning from past experience, call it pessimism, call it yet another example of my craziness, but I just don't ever expect anything in life to last. Whether it's a perm in my hair or a friendship or a job, I never go into anything thinking it's going to last the test of time. Even while I'm in the situation and enjoying it, a small part of my brain is looking ahead to life after it's over, because I just know it's not going to be there forever.

I have no real reason for thinking this other than the fact that it’s the way things have always been. All my life people and things have drifted in and drifted out; sometimes for a good time, sometimes for a long time. But either way, all things come to an end for me.

With an attitude like that, goodbyes should be a breeze for me right? Having let go of good things and people in my life countless times before, letting go should be the easiest thing in the world for me. At this point in my life I’m so seasoned at recognizing the signs that something on someone is on its way out that I should go into auto-goodbye mode; instantly and automatically rearranging the pieces of my life to cover the space that will be left when it’s gone. It should be seamless, easy, painless. And yet, whenever I get the sense that something good is about to be gone I become consumed with separation anxiety.

Right now I think one of my friends might be pissed off at me. I could be wrong – I have a tendency to be a bit fatalistic about such things – but something in my gut tells me that something is not right between us. If he is mad, I can certainly understand why that would be, but at the same time the idea that we might not be cool like we once were anymore makes me all angsty. I find myself strategizing about ways to hold on to him, what I might say or do to change the course of things and get him to stick around; even though I know that if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore there’s really nothing I can do about it. I call this “raging against the dying of the night” (and yes I know that I’m misquoting) and although it never proves to be effective, when I sense something is about to leave I do the most to try to get it to stay.

Because even though I’m used to people drifting in and out of my life, it never gets any easier. Long after the person has forgotten about me; I’m still gnashing my teeth about it. I’m still daydreaming about them making a comeback, even though I know that if they did things wouldn’t be the same anyway. Even though I know that letting go of the people I care about is an essential and inevitable fact of my life, I always hate it and it’s always hard to deal with.

Tomorrow is my last day of work. I’ve dreamed about this day, prayed for it to come, visualized the day when I slid my passcard and the key from my office across the desk and said a final goodbye to my movie posters before chucking the deuces. After months of wishing for this day to come, I should be bursting with happiness at the fact that it’s finally here. Instead I’m waxing nostalgic about the good times I’ve had and the people I so enjoy being around that I will likely never speak to again. I should be spending my last days tying up loose ends and making sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed so I can leave in good conscience. I should be excited about the adventures I’m about to have at my new job. I should be looking forward, but instead I’m looking back at people and a place that aren’t even quite behind me yet.

I spend so much of my life worrying about later that I never really get to enjoy now. I’m too worried about the end of things to ever get excited about the beginning. When I should be enjoying the thick of things, some part of my brain is calculating how much time is left until the end comes. I’m so fixated on the endings that I never stop to appreciate things as they happen. And while I call this being realistic and managing my expectations, the truth is that all this focus on the moment at which things slip out of my grasp probably just makes that moment call that much sooner. Self-fulfilling prophecies and whatnot. But still when I’m in it, I obsess about when it’s over and I’m looking back on it. That’s just my way.

But what about you guys? Do you go into friendships or relationships expecting them to last or are you too always worried about how they’ll end. Are you able to let go of people in your life gracefully or do you hold on with both hands and do all you can to get them to stay, even if their purpose has long since been served? Speak on it in the comments.

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