Sometimes when a thing is broke it can't get fixed

Twelve and half years ago I was living in Boston, where I had a group of friends who were and are more dear to me than words can express. We had very little money, scraping together enough for the occasional night out, but we did a lot of gaming, which is blessedly free. For my birthday that year they chipped in their funds and bought me a beautiful amber letter opener, which I have cherished ever since.

In the intervening years those friends have had a falling out, and while they all speak to me, they don't speak to each other. But I could always pick up the letter opener, finger it with nostalgia and both remember how things used to be and dream idle daydreams that they might be that way again. (these daydreams are, by the way, totally unrealistic.)

We've been using that letter opener to slice open the tape on the many boxes from our recent move, and while searching for boxes of Christmas ornaments it slipped from my fingers, hit the bare concrete floor of the storage space under our stairs and snapped in two. There's no real way to reconnect it, and it just brought home the finality that in objects, as well as in relationships, some things just can't be repaired. But I do wish that I could visit the Sunset Grill in Allston tonight and hoist a drink or two as a final good-bye to the past.