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This is a goodbye, but not really. It’s a goodbye to seeing her in person and working in the same office building and sitting on side by side barstools and hearing her lovely accent and seeing her fierce side eye, but it’s not goodbye to conversing on twitter / email. She’ll be traversing and working and tasting and doing and living and filling up that creative well in places far far away.

It’s a weird thing saying goodbye for now, for an extended period, for the time being to a friend inside and outside the office because this cutting of physical ties makes me want to let her know what she means to me, thank her for all she’s done, and reflect on what she’s taught me, but then again, we’ll continue to communicate and share and laugh online (the internet leash is long and unbreakable) which means my spewing of my feelings is a bit melodramatic.

But this is a change, a big one, and so my dear dear smart wicked generous talented, Adriana, I want to say to you THANK YOU for leading by example, for living with passion, for writing with courage, for encouraging me, for giving me opportunities and time and space to write, for listening, for laughing, for baking, for agreeing to just one more glass, for introducing me to Dear Sugar, for reading, for discussing, for explaining, for asking me to text as soon as I get home, for cooking, for poetry, for knowing me despite what I try to hide, for being my friend. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I’m going to miss you so so so unbelievably much that I don’t really have the proper words for it. All I can say is that I can’t wait to live vicariously through you, hear all the delectable details, and read the words you craft.

Bon voyage, my lovely!

I oscillated between awake and asleep. I’d had a dream I was sorry not to have finished but a major headache woke me up. Medicine achieved. I willed myself to return to the mysterious dream and even slid my eye mask back down, but the closest I got was a vague state of mind. I was aware my alarm was due to chime in less than an hour, but dream-brain had lines of poetry on repeat that I was trying not to forget before I fell back asleep. Or woke up. I’m not sure which. The darkness and the severe lack of sleep from the past five days overrode that little voice in my head saying wasn’t it was time to get up? Isn’t it time to get up? Waking up is more important than figuring out the dream.

*phone chirps with text message*

*pulls off eye mask to blaze of sunlight*

*clock reads 8:40*

*panic*

My alarm clock betrayed me.

My phone’s screen said the alarm was going off (had been going off) since 6:21am, but I never heard it. I’m usually at work by 8:30 and here I was still in bed at 8:40. The panic of reality obliterated any lingering traces of anything besides MOVE FASTER NOW and with two extra hours of sleep, man, did I move.

Where’s the line between admiration and jealousy? When do you start learning and stop copying? When do you know the strength, the weakness of your words? How do you know what victory tastes like when all you know is defeat? How do you find your voice when you want to sound like someone else?

All the questions and none of the answers.

Well, maybe one answer.

April 25, 2014. Cheilectomy on left big toe.

April 26, 2014. SOS sent to mother.

April 27, 2014. Mom arrives with her nursemaid gear and mothering face. To have one’s mother all to oneself is a delight I rarely experience. I recommend having foot surgery if that can be your Rx.

May 5, 2014. Doctor removes bandages. I pass out. First time ever. I don’t recommend it.

May 19, 2014. Stitches out.

May 23-28, 2014. Travel to CO for family wedding. Massive blisters form along the site where the tape covered the stitches. Nephew dubs me “tapioca toe.”

May 29, 2014. Email doctor picture of rapidly declining wound area. He immediately responds with a “That’s an allergic reaction. You’re allergic to the adhesive on the bandages.” Treatment plan is discussed and successfully carried out. I report findings to family. Father and Sister J say “Oh, yeah, I’m allergic to that too.” A little heads up next time, Family, huh?

June – September 2014. Pain continues in one form or another. Continued visits to doctor.

September 9, 2014. Week long steroid treatment clears up remaining inflammation. Pain free.

September 11, 2014. In the middle of playing frisbee on a beach in Nantucket at the full length and speed of my stride, my left foot collides with a cement block that was, you know, in the middle of the beach. As cement blocks are. ALL the pain and frustration and disappointment and fear and pain and pain and tears and pain.

September 25, 2014. X-rays reveal a chipped bone + a crack running through the joint where my big toe connects with my foot.

October 2014 – April 2015. Pain with every step. Various more courses of steroids and appointments and my inability to explain the location and types pain and the inability of the doctor to look at any place other than the point of surgery and suggestions of more more surgery and my refusal and my frustration with the daily pain and the student doctor asking if this is something I could learn to live with and my glare leveled at him and my anger boiling over to the point where I blurt out, “This, this part right here. It feels like I could just pop it off, just pull the entire joint out. This is where it hurts. Not the part where you did the surgery. That’s fine.” And the doctor tests that joint and says, “Oh, yes, that is stiff.” And a light bulb goes on in my head. Doctors are human. And now I understand the saying One must be their own advocate.

April 17, 2015, 10:30am. Foot manipulation (a procedure done in the operating room, but without any cutting, as the doctor bends the foot in a multitude of ways to break up the scar tissue that’s abundant in my foot).

April 17, 2015, 11:15am. In recovery room. Nurse sees me struggling to get my phone, offers help, and a warning, “Be careful. Texting so soon after anesthesia is going to be like drunk texting.” I laugh and text C to ask her to come sit with me, but my brain and fingers agree with the nurse’s assessment and all I can type out is “The nurse said this would be like a drinker text.”

April 17, 2015, remainder of day. Foot is numb and weird feeling and only slightly painful.

April 18, 2015. My foot looks normal and feels normal and the swelling is gone and there’s some slight pain on the top of my toe and a bunch of bruising around the joint, but IT MOVES. IT REALLY MOVES. Angels strike their harps. I stand there and blink dumbly at my foot. Afraid to move again. Afraid it was a dream and I’ll wake to reality. I take a tentative few steps. My foot bends like a normal foot!! I haven’t had such range of motion since 3 years ago.

April 23, 2015. Follow-up appointment. Doctor uses words like “satisfying, dramatic, immediate change, crunching, a lot of scar tissue in there, a lot, it’s not usually so dramatic, but I got double the motion almost immediately.” I use words like “FREEDOM, mobility, broken record, it moves, it bends, it’s a normal foot.” He grins at the opportunity he had to forcibly wrangle the scar tissue out of my joint. I grin at the wonder of having my foot move. At the (to quote my doctor) dramatic difference. At the fact I can walk without searing pain and without a marbled bottom of my foot and for miles and miles and miles.

*walks into sunset*