RE: The Great Goodbye War of 2023

Here's some unsolicited advice for moving to a new country: prepare to be entirely and wholly exhausted. Granted, that may be the case for moving any non-local distance after you've made a life for yourself somewhere, but I wouldn't know. The physical toll of starting a new chapter aside, my final days in Los Angeles were jam-packed with work, activities, outings and last gatherings. Since the end of July, I have been faced with a near-constant barrage of goodbyes. And, for someone who is not fond of endings, no matter how temporary they are or how exciting what they lead to may be, it has felt like an all-out war on my senses and mental facilities.

First came the farewell to my apartment, which was weird in and of itself as putting your life in boxes and essentially logging and categorizing your physical impact on the space around you is an interesting mental exercise. The stress of which only doubles and solidifies when it coincides perfectly with the unexpected emotional response elicited at 2 AM after your toes fail to find the living room rug that should be there to guide your half-blind journey to the bathroom but which you sleepily remember you sold on Facebook Marketplace the week prior. For me, that groggy realization was the first moment my quickly approaching departure felt real.

Once my keys were placed back in my landlord's palm, the battlefront shifted. It manifested more so in people, not places, growing more intense as my flight from the West Coast inched ever closer. There were ten days in the City of Angels that I was addressless, carless, and petless. After helping with the apartment project, my mother took my car, 95% of my remaining belongings, and my cats on a cross-country road trip to Maryland, where I would meet them and my immediate family for a week before heading overseas. This sequence of events created the perfect opportunity for a whirlwind tour of LA hosted by many of my close friends for a night or two or even a few hours.

Up until the evening of August 7th, I was able to deny the existence of any approaching adieus by distracting myself with late-night couch conversations, frozen espresso martinis, trips to Malibu soundtracked by The Beaches and Shrek 2's Holding Out For a Hero, fawning over Ryan Gosling, Red Wine (Cab Sav in particular), Love Island and other essential quality pastimes. Then came the first unavoidable goodbye. From that moment, the tears started, and they rarely stopped. They didn't always leak into other people's visages, but I knew the dam behind my eyes was threatening to break.

There was one exciting ending in the midst of this. I was lucky enough to attend the final two nights of The Eras Tour with a total of 6 different friends. The opportunity to bask in the genius that is Taylor Swift for seven combined hours was the reason for my delayed departure and the perfect way to transition from the past six years of my life into the next six months. Not only was I able to scream/sing Long Live with people that have cherished me and made me treasure my time in the accommodating city, but I also got to experience the classic friendship anthem New Romantics and the sound of a 70,000-person crowd chanting 'hold on to the memories they will hold on to you' on repeat. It was cathartic, needed and more than I could have hoped for. (As an aside for my delusional girlies: I will be operating as if the August 8th surprise song King Of My Heart, was a sign explicitly sent to me from the mastermind-in-chief herself, foreshadowing the outcome of this upcoming venture.)

Yet, the emotional highs experienced came at the price of physical lows, as two consecutive nights of jumping and dancing until midnight on the tail end of what was already a mentally fraught week perfectly primed my body for the final stand of swan songs: the last twelve hours. Because I am who I am, I invited everyone I hoped to see before I departed to one location. Some called it a party. Others joked that it was a funeral. It was a great thing to do, and the night closed on my very whole heart, but as the crowd started to dwindle-and each friend took it upon themselves to wish me well and offer parting platitudes-the more and more cracks formed in my blubbering barricade until I was tearing up at the sight of a simple, friendly face.

All in all, I count myself as a survivor of the ordeal. I emerged batter and bruised but for all the best reasons. I am still not fond of endings. These latest ones were the definition of bittersweet, and my eyes will always glisten as I hold the events of early August in fond remembrance. There isn't a better way for me to end this segment than with a quote from a beloved silly old bear whose words have sounded in my head again and again and ring more true now than they ever have: "How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

All of my love to those I have left in Los Angeles. Buy a book at The Ripped Bodice for me, and if you can't make it to London, I will see you in person soon (and on FaceTime even sooner).

 <3,

Sydney