Last night, my roommate was watching the season finale of “The Office” on Netflix. I was already a mixed bag of emotions, but that episode made me tear up.

I’ve only ever seen the latter half of season eight and all of season nine, but yet I felt like I knew all these people so well. Anyway, there were a few parts that made me tear up.

But two that got me the most were Andy’s line (he was tearing up also) “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve left them,” and the scene when everyone is hugging each other goodbye as they leave the Dunder Mifflin office and go off into the parking lot.

I’ve only cried (two of them were tear-ups) three times since high school graduation. One time was on the phone with either my little cousin or my aunt. The second was for a brief moment at the airport saying goodbye to my friends, and maybe again during the third or fourth week of school to my academic advisor.

I don’t let myself do a lot of crying, mainly because I don’t let myself do a lot of feeling for very long.

Nard Dog’s quote hit me the first time I heard it and it hit me again yesterday. His quote is one of my mantras (if i had mantras).

“I don’t do good with change and passing time.”

I have to be active in the present, because then I don’t have to address the future. But by being consumed by the “here and now,” I also forgot, it becomes the “then and there.” I have watched years of my life just -zoom- right by, and I never really got the chance to appreciate them.

The scene where everybody’s hugging each other goodbye outside, reminded me of my high school graduation night. Some of those hugs on graduation night were, “I’m probably never going to see you agian, but we’re friends on Facebook so we won’t consciously address it” hugs though.

I cried so much and so hard that night.

I can’t believe there are people who have helped make me who I am, that I won’t be seeing for a while, if ever again. These are people who have been so invested in your life, as you them, and you just have to pick up and leave.

I think I teared up during that scene because they were all adults. They were supposed to be done doing all their goodbyes. They were supposed to be stable and static in their minds, and yet they were all changing paths and starting fresh. And it just scares me that our lives are never settled.

So I went to bed with a heavy heart.

A heavy heart for myself, for those I’ve known, and for this weirdly wonderful yet torturous existence we have all been fated too.

Heavy hearts give good sad sleep.

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com.