The question

Almost finished the Last Goodbye from the former workplace. Took the last big load of stuff out of my office... didn't have the strength to remove it from my truck, when I got home. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

One last software-documentation thing to do. One last trip to the place to look for tools... they're gonna do a once over in the workshop, I used to have a lot of tools that I just left there because I was the only one doing any work in said workshop, and the drama teacher understands that I'll be coming by during his Big Final Cleanup, to see what of my tools may still be there.

The motorized chair I've been using for a couple of years: its owner said I could keep, if I wanted it. I'll be removing it once I figure out whether there's a good-for-ME add-on for my truck, or whether it's just a matter of disassemble and fling it into the truck bed.

"It" is basically "over" now, but once those last three things are done... it's really, really, over.

Will I ever go back there? For any reason?

Dunno. And, fortunately, it's not a problem or a question I need to, or even care to, deal with. Now or ever. If they call me and I want to go, I will. If they don't, I won't. Done, and done.

Salon.com had an interesting article a few days ago, about how our culture doesn't really know how to say "goodbye."  We M.S.ers, we're forced to say goodbye more often, and to more intimate parts of our lives, than most people—and certainly, any of us—ever wanted to.

You'd think we'd get used to it. That we'd get better at it.

But do we?

Eh... Well... Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes we're surprised that we have gotten better at it, and didn't even notice that we had. Sometimes we're surprised that we haven't, and didn't know until it was too close, too late, that we need to say goodbye again. And sometimes, alas... again, again.

This... this is the most horrible, most beautiful, most inescapable, most subtle, of the gifts of M.S...

Learning how to really say goodbye.

Because, as the Taoists told us millennia ago, and the Salon author succinctly concludes his article: We must leave in order to begin.

Ending creates beginning.

Therefore, if one of the gifts of M.S. is "ending," it must also be "beginning." Yin and Yang are the dark side and the light side of the same mountain. The end IS the beginning.

So, where will these beginnings take us?

That... is the question.