one last time

I am wide awake at 0149 when the wake up and van time are 0640/0740. I did the proper things of only taking an 3 hour nap on arrival, walking around all day, and having dinner which a single cocktail. I did not however stay up until midnight as I usually try and do because my body screamed at me me to get some rest. Three hours and and then I had to use the bathroom, three hours and the mind went from dreaming about my last flight to mind spinning about it and then next couple of weeks.

Here in Manchester where I have log more time than past relationships, I experience what will most likely be my last layover. In eight hours I will be aboard my last flight as a flight attendant and even though I have longed for the day to be released from scheduling control, I am sad. The first pang of it hit my yesterday when Carol and I were doing the only the thing a straight girl could do here, shop. We found fun dress up for adult shops in the mall and I was wandering around trying to put together my Halloween costume since I always like things to be original. The hurry up and figure it out because you are never going to be back here and life isn't going to be "I'll look for it on a layover in England" ever again. My next year's costume will come from a domestic shop and most likely only one from Portland.
I have been advised to actually feel what is transpiring instead of sharing it with the world. It is advice that struck me as odd when I first read it considering the source. How does this guy know me so well? I haven't allowed myself to shed more than a handful of tears at a given time about this next move. The tears have come with thoughts of finality and lost. Majority of the tears came at my going away party of which only a handful of people showed up to but was a success in mind as those people I care about most were there. It was after the attempt to bribe everyone in the bar out $5 and their guess of my next destination for charity that the band serenaded me with "leaving on a jet plane". I sat there in between the three guys and really listened to the song, watching Carrie and Lauren the tears began to flow as I realized that once again I am leaving great friends. I think this is why it took so long to make friends here because I didn't want to feel this awful pain again. It is why I hit self destruct with Joe, it is why I distanced myself from everyone. "Babe I hate to go".

Three have been bag under my eyes for weeks now and the weight keeps hanging on even though I tell myself it is just plane or humidity bloat. Carol made the comment that it will be nice when I get back into a gym routine, Although I don't think it was malicious, now I just look in the mirror with hope that once things get straighten out and are "normal" once more, I can be back to the happy shape.

For now it is back to the second bed to pray for silence of the brain even as Carol's snoring is the background for rest, and some sleep before I put on that uniform and first class smile one last time.