Normally, when I write for TheOdyssey, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to write about. It’s usually a topic that’s important to me. I write my articles in a pan flash, edit, and am done. I know that makes me sound like I don’t care, but I do. I just work better when I’m under pressure. When it finally matters that I create a thing, whether for a deadline or just because I can’t get it out of my head unless it’s on paper, it’s much better than if I were to write it weeks beforehand and hone it.

This week, I found out that someone very important to me is moving to a different side of the country and soon. I’m still trying to process it and I can’t really stick enough coherent thoughts together to write an article about something important. So, instead of beating you over the head with the majesty that is Benedict Cumberbatch’s acting or telling you something helpful, I am going to explore my relationship to this person and hopefully have it a bit processed by the end. Maybe this will help you. Maybe it won’t.

I’ve never been good at my feelings. I mean, I can analyze someone else’s in about three seconds flat and offer them ways to deal with it, but when it comes to my feelings I like to pretend that I don’t have any.

Of course, that’s not true. I have many, many feelings regardless of whether or not I give them a name or allow myself to feel them fully.

I’m also not very good at close relationships. I like having friends and I like it when my friends tell me things about themselves and ask me for help. As I mentioned in my previous article, I am never more in my element than when I feel needed. However, I do not like to share my private feelings with other people. I try, but it is difficult.

This person, from the moment that our relationship deepened from acquaintances to something more, has challenged this part of me. Never before have I felt so comfortable being my most truthful self in front of another human. When we are together, I feel like a puzzle piece sliding home. I rarely, if ever, feel more like myself than when I am with them.

And now this person is moving away and for the first time in almost five years I won’t be able to see them on a dime. I won’t be able to ask them to rescue me from college so that I can feel like a real human being instead of a machine generating a product. I mean, I could, but it will require money and planning and days, if not weeks, in advance. It will take all of that just to touch them.

I can’t even be angry, because this is the best thing for this person and when you love someone it means that you have to support them when they’re doing what is best for them. All I can do is remain behind, finish my degree, and deal with it the best that I can. It will probably include watching Bridget Jones’s Diary on repeat, because that has become my favorite movie. Also copious amounts of Benedict Cumberbatch’s acting, because it is sublime.

I don’t have any easy answers for myself, or for you if you’re dealing with something similar. All I know is that it is easier to do the leaving and get to live somewhere memory-free than it is to remain behind and see ghosts of a person you love and a version of yourself that may not exist without them everywhere you go.

However, to quote an adage: “This, too, shall pass.”