Goodbye.

I am way, way more sad than I should be. Than I thought I’d be. I feel like I’m losing a friend. I am misty eyed. I don’t do well with goodbyes. Who does? But my god, this place meant so much. To so many of us. I don’t want it shuttered. I want it here. Open. To remember.

This place. It FELT like a place, didn’t it? A real place you could actually go to. It felt alive, always moving, always beating. Like you could open a door and enter and find people here and find your past here. Like that was still moving and breathing too.

What am I saying? I’m trying to put into words the feelings I have about this place and I just can’t. Not properly anyway.

So I’ll say thank you instead. Thank you all for reading along. For offering shoulders when I needed it. For giggling with me at life or each other. For just being there.

Thank you to this place for changing my life. Changing it in the most dramatic and huge ways imaginable. My children exist because of Open Diary. My marriage exists because of Open Diary. I have made friends here who became real life friends and did real life things with me. I moved across the country with one of you. One of you became my daily partner in crime, seeking fun every day and night, all over this town. Some of you took me to concerts, to bars, to movies. Some of you opened your home to me when I came to visit you or your city. I dated one of you briefly and it was a lovely experience. My mom and I both wrote here and it was such a joy to get to know her in ways I’d never be able to do otherwise. I could go on and on.

This place has always been home. It’s always sat atop my bookmarks, in the first or second spot. I’d spend days and weeks reliving my past in a way I’d never, ever be able to do had I not written it down in such detail.

So here’s where we get off, right? Here’s where we end. Goodbye everyone. It’s truly been my pleasure.