The End in 2018

For the first time in a very long time, I have the courage to listen to Brahms’ German Requiem. The fourth movement. The one I love and listen to because I grew to know it in Kidger’s class all of those years ago. It’s oddly beautiful to be able to appreciate this beauty. Something broke through me today, and for a moment, I’m a very different man. Maybe it will last. Maybe not. Let’s see.
I sobbed today, I cried from the second sheet, of four, where I had to write my name. I signed away my remaining two years on JET. They’re gone. Cast off into an other world of shadows and oblivion, a realm of what-ifs and if-onlys. I made a decision, for once I made a decision, and I hated every second of it.
I sobbed. I sobbed while I wrote, but I sobbed from a real place. I didn’t want to cry, but I did because there was nothing else to do but to cry. Unlike the forced tears of so many funerals when it seemed like I ought to cry, or the dubious tears of moments where crying seemed to fulfill a need to cry, these sobs were ripped out of me, one by one, and when I had to duck into a corner, as I left, or into the bathroom before I could make it to the stairs, I realized just how difficult it is to stifle sobs.

I’m leaving JET. Not because I want to. Not even because I have to. But because it’s what I need to do. I love it here. I love my students, I love the feeling of warmth and comfort, I love so much. I’ve healed here, I’ve grown here, I’ve recovered here. But . . . I have to move on. No matter how agonizing the process is.