gone home

Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

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Saying goodbye to fellow junior doctors, one by one, with hugs and bittersweet smiles, as we each leave the department to lead our separate lives. 'I'm leaving medicine, for good.' He says. It's a shock. To begin together and end alone. you know it's inevitable but the absence feels so sudden, goodbyes always somehow manage to blindside you

---

All the leaves at once
The remembering self
is nostalgic in advance

The house
shrinks to fill the space
echoes of memory
evaporate with the clutter
the whitewashed emptiness
crowds out the past with its presence
with its newness

and now you are left
on the precipice
you too will go over the edge
as your heart strains
to absorb as much now
as it can
before everything
changes forever again