This sucks. This really really sucks.

I feel like someone is pulling me apart. Limb by limb.

To be fair, the dismembering started same time last year. So by now you would have thought I'd be numb to the pain. But I have never been good with change. With letting thnigs go. With saying goodbye.

To be fair, I was prepared for this. Have been for a couple of months. But today, when I heard them mouth the necessary platitudes, I felt like just giving in to the hurt - and giving up. No more stiff upper lip. No more cracking jokes so that others will cheer up. Just having someone else hug me and say..."It's ok"

I won't just be saying goodbye to some friends - coz I will keep them in my life. I won't be saying goodbye to just a place - though it will hurt endlessly to see strangers taking over a place I once considered my second home. But what I will be saying goodbye to is a bunch of my best memories, the associations that go with a place.

Sometimes, when you walk by a place - you think of the conversations you have had there, the jokes you cracked, the confidences you shared, the secrets you revealed, the unexpected relationships you forged. Sometimes, that all important slice of life you cling to is nothing but some endless cups of tea you had shared with a friend, standing on the terrace, staring off into the distance.

You can deal with changes. Coz that's the future. And you can learn to fight the future.

But how do you fight the past? When you don't have the real thing, and the memories are all you have - how do you deal with those being taken away. One moment, one person, one place at a time?