When the last day of your program comes, you won't be ready.
You'll have put off packing for forever. It's Thursday night and you're a little bit drunk and a whole lot of sad and there will be piles of clothes on your floor that you meant to pack on Wednesday, but on Wednesday you were also sad, and on Tuesday, and on Monday, and the clothes are still there. You will have to pack them tomorrow (which is what you've been saying for days, but you're really out of time).
You'll have a list of things that you wish you would've done, things you thought you'd have forever to do. You arrived here in August, fresh out of college, fresh out of camp. You didn't know who you were or who you were going to be. You had never traveled on your own. You had never taken a risk like this. But you did, you boarded a plane and went to Chicago and then boarded another plane for Oakland and you did it. But you had a list. And it's mostly checked, but there are still things left undone.
(A reason to come back.)
There are things on your list that have been crossed off, even though you didn't know you wanted to do them. To volunteer at an art show and drunkenly wrap art for people who paid a high price. To elbow your way through Dolores Park during Pride to make sure you and your friends don't separate. To climb the steps to Twin Peaks without any idea of how steep they would be. To stand, facing the Pacific, and feel unstoppable.
You didn't know you wanted these things, or needed them, but you did.
And now it's the last day of your program, and you can only remember glimpses. The nerves of your first day, in which you spilled coffee and got on the wrong train and were late. The laughter of your co-workers over a meeting in which you should be discussing something more important. The first time you climbed out onto the roof, the tiles rough beneath your heels. The mountains of Holden. The colors of Myrtlewood. The first time you listened to Hamilton, the first time you heard it. The night you all removed the carpets and sat in the living room together one last time. The small gray cat who used to try to dart into your house every time you would open the door.
It's all glimpses.
Not making eye contact over the dining room table when things got tense. Forgetting to dump in chili powder in the crock pot when it was your turn to cook. Unscrewing the hinges of the door when Danielle accidentally locked you out. Always promising to clean your side of the room next week, next week. The sharp voice of a client demanding to see you. The sound of the elevator dinging open.
What will you remember?
Will you remember the first time you and Nico and Maria decided, yes, we are friends, and we will hang out on a Saturday? When you forgot your wallet? When Nico went to the wrong station? When you hiked through the trails, wishing you had brought more water, taking photos like you were on a shoot?
Will you remember the first time you walked the lake all the way around? How you just needed an excuse to get out of the house? How you talked about a TV show that you don't even watch anymore to fill the silence, tiptoeing past dogs and small kids riding bikes?
Will you remember crowded Ubers or Lyfts? The small girl on the bus who sat beside you and kept your mornings lively? The joy when you discovered a new food you tried? The tears you shed during spirituality night? The choices you made to be intentional in what you gave away? The morning the trains kept changing platforms? The first time you called it Introvert Saturday?
When was your last Introvert Saturday?
Will you remember the last time you walked into Walden, where the air smelled like paper and the floors creaked with every step? When's the last time you got fro-yo from the place down the street? Will they wonder what happened to the three girls who always came in right before closing?
You've shared a lifetime with these people, a story that no one else will ever fully be able to understand. No one else walked beside you through the fights over both small and big things, through the conversations over needs. No one else marched beside you in the streets and helped you hold your signs. No one else held you when you cried, confused and afraid of everything that life had given us.
This is your family, these are your people. You have climbed mountains together, literally, and they have your name in their bones just as you have theirs.
And this is your home, even though you are leaving. You have walked the streets of Oakland and strided through San Francisco. You have claimed the coffee shop on the corner as your own. You prefer the fries from All Star over any you've had before. They know to load the jukebox with money when you arrive at the local bar so you can pick the songs.
This is your home. You know which way the key turns in the lock. You always say thank you to bus drivers. Your best friends are in rooms just down the hall, waiting to laugh with you about whatever it is you've done that day.
This is your home and this is your family and you're leaving them. How cruel is it to love something so completely, and have to say goodbye? To know that you might never come back?
(Of course you'll come back.)
Do you think you'll remember how you felt the first time you saw the Golden Gate?
Do you think you'll be able to carry it with you?
I hope so. God, I hope so.
Thank you, Bay Area, for everything I'll remember and everything that I'll forget.
Thank you for the magic.
