Atlanta

Atlanta was simultaneously better and worse than I expected it to be. This was my first trip back there since moving to Portland and since T and I broke up, so I had the sweet nostalgic moments of "oh look, that's the road I used to turn on to go home every day" plus the hellish judgment of "oh look, that's where T and I had dinner sometimes! But that life is over and is never coming back. Awesome."

One of T's and my old best friends offered to let me stay in her guest room (which was fantastically nice of her and she was an incredibly gracious hostess). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight probably caused more awkwardness and stress than I expected. More on that later.

So I got to M's in the early evening, she introduced me to her new puppy and her new (to me) girlfriend, then we all (minus the dog) went to dinner at their favorite pizza joint. There was a pretty hardcore bingo game going on which made it a little hard to talk but we managed okay. After dinner we stopped at the Target T and I used to shop at, and that was a little gut-twisting. We used to spend a whole lot of time in Target.

The next morning my one plan was to head down to Turner to see some old work folks. I was nervous but excited to see everyone again. I had no idea how I would be received or if anyone would even care all that much that I had come to visit. I really really didn't want to be that old coworker that comes back and makes a fuss and everybody is just waiting for them to go away. Luckily, things didn't go that way at all. It was surreal to be driving into the Turner parking garage like I had so many times before. I ran into a former boss of mine (Ed) and a former coworker (Justin) in the parking garage on my way up and we did the awkward 'are we going to hug?' thing. I decided that yes, we were going to hug.

I went to the front desk to check in and they took my photo for my visitor's badge, but the quality was so horrible I ended up looking quite a bit like Snuffleuffagus. Close enough. They called my host, an old friend of mine from way back (Steve), and he and another friend of mine (Scott) came out to get me and got hugs as well. They took me back into the cubicle farm and I went around and said hello to everyone and got pictures with them. Scott then gave me a tour of the campus as there had been many changes and improvements made to it. I even got to see the view from the roof! Not bad at all :)

We headed back to the tech area and ran into Lisa, another of my old coworkers who was now working in another department. She told me about a going away party for one of my old coworkers from CNN, so we decided to go to that. I was a little anxious about heading over to CNN since I had maybe one or two enemies who would likely be at the going away thing, but eh..life's too short to worry about that crap for too long. I'm so glad I went because I got to say hello to a bunch of people I would never have connected with and some of them were old bosses that were really important to me, so it was a nice moment. To my great relief I ended up not having to talk to either of my arch-nemeses.

After the going away party, I headed out to Steve's house for a poker game he was hosting. This was something we did a couple of times before T and I moved away, so it was nice to get the chance to play again. I didn't win, sadly, but I did get to deal which was a lot of fun, plus I had a really nice time talking to Steve and his wife after the game. It's a shame we don't live closer to each other...we could totally be friends.

Poker ran late and I didn't end up getting back to M's until around 3AM, so the next day I elected to lounge around all day and not do much of anything. M and A went out and left me to my own devices and I had a lovely day of watching movies and relaxing. That evening, A had invited one of her work friends over for dinner so I came downstairs to help them get ready. M let me make the icing and frost the cupcakes which, as you can imagine, thrilled me to no end :)

Things got weird when the friend got there though, not because of her..she was very cool. The weirdness came from the history that T and I have with coming over to M's house for dinner. We used to be great friends with M and her ex and would frequently come over for dinner and cards. This evening, either M or I (probably me) made the mistake of suggesting that we play a card game that T and I and M and her ex used to play all the time. Bad, bad idea. First of all, it's kind of a convoluted game and I think A was aware that we used to play it with M's ex so she was not all that excited about learning how to play. There was a moment where we were going around the table placing bids and it just occurred to me how wrong it felt for M and me to be sitting there playing cards with people who were not T and M's ex. I actually had to get up from the table and go sit in the bathroom and cry for a little while, just to get the sadness out of my system. Horrible how you can't go back, isn't it?

M and I talked a little later about it and she mentioned that she had felt weird too, so at least it wasn't just me. But that's the way life works. Things change and move forward and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

The next day, I packed up the car, said my goodbyes and headed out. I drove to the neighborhood T and I were living in right before we moved to Portland. It was freaky to look around that neighborhood...it was completely the wrong type of place for us, or maybe just for me. But that's what I thought I wanted then. That's what everyone in Atlanta seems to be striving for. Kind of hard to realize that you don't want that thing you're supposed to want once you've finally got it.

After that I got the hell out of there. Too many memories. I definitely want to go back again someday to see my friends and maybe play some more poker, but I think I'm going to try to avoid the old neighborhoods this time.