Last night. Countdown to absolute zero. Tonight the berg is blown. The ramparts fall to dust. Tonight that voice in the darkness gets lost, its owner gets gone, and the echo of our last frequency gets sucked into the vacuum, decimated, no longer to reverberate.

I wrote that in 2006 to open a story about an interstellar radio jock’s final broadcast on the last spaceborne outpost of humanity. It felt prophetic last night, which was literally my last night in the south.

Your last night in a city that’s sheltered you for years always feels like being alone in space. It doesn’t matter how many parties they throw you, how many friends or family members wish you fare-thee-well, how many old girlfriends you fuck, at the end of the night it’s just you and a vast sightless future somewhere Out There. Because none of them know. How could they? They’re stationary, rooted. They’re dead sharks. You’re the only one. You’re the only one who is static. You’re the only one who knows. You’re the only one who EVER LEFT SOME PLACE FOR SOMEPLACE ELSE.

In a few hours I’ll be airborne for Los Angeles, two-thousand miles in four hours totally taking the technological achievements of my species for granted like every other fucking mung who fails to realize man was never meant to fly. I’m leaving almost four years on the table here. Four years in which I wrote my first novel, made my first “professional” fiction sale, realized the central fallacy of “professional” fiction markets, heard my first piece of fiction podcast, had my first story optioned for film, adapted my first story into a screenplay, got my first freelance screenwriting gig, saw my words on the screen for the first time, wrote dozens of columns, hundreds of blog posts, thousands of tweets, and even had a few moments for basic human interaction.

That’s a lot. You don’t feel it at the time. You’re numb to most of the wins while feeling the losses entirely too deep. You’re always waiting for what’s next, what’s expected, what’s desired, all the while ignorant to the waves of each crashing around you. You’re a man with his tibia protruding through the skin asking a bystander if your leg is broken. It’s not ‘til you’re ready to leave that you finally feel the pain and all the wonderful and illusory endorphins it generates. Four years ago I was living in Dallas, I quit wrestling, put in an application at a Virgin Megastore in Mockingbird Station, realized they could call at any time, promptly packed all my shit and fled the state. I came here to put my head down and write, nothing more. I wasn’t counting any of this as real life.

But of course it was. It always is. It all is.

I remember everything now. It’s sharper than it ever could’ve been at the time it went down. I wish I’d enjoyed the ride more. I wish I’d had even a sliver of recognition in the moment. I wish I’d made different choices. I wish I’d made the right ones and occasionally the wrong ones.

Tennessee was good for me, it was bad for me, it was indifferent towards me. It was like any other place at any other time in your life.

Now that time is over.

So I’m gone. Goodbye Johnny Cash, and enjoy the sunglasses, wherever you are. Goodbye street buskers working their mojo on the tourists and every once and while flashing you that secret journeyman wink. Goodbye TPAC with its touring company productions of Spamalot, Avenue Q, and Rent, where I sat in the front row in my loud-ass floral print Dr. Gonzo shirt and watched Richard Thomas own in 12 Angry Men and then partied with John Boy Walton himself and the rest of the cast at the Sun Trust Building ‘til 3:00 in the morning. Goodbye Ryman Auditorium, where I saw both Eddie Izzard and The Kids in the Hall perform live for the first time and felt truly blessed by the occasion. Goodbye to the bar at The Palm where I sat for many hours among the caricatures of celebrities and realized for the first time how celebrity is exactly that, a caricature of a human being and humanity itself. Goodbye LP Field and Titans tailgates and uncapping a thousand bottles of beer while never actually seeing a single game.

Goodbye to my mother, whom I leave to care for all those besides me who love and respect and fear her. Goodbye roadside BBQ smokers. Goodbye weeping willows.

Goodbye.