I don’t think I can even come close to making you understand my current state of mind, however, I feel like trying. It’s technically Friday. Technically the day that the comic ends. Damn it. I put my soul into this thing. Writing is an interesting pursuit. I can only speak for myself, and so that is all I will try to do. When I write, I get involved. I described it once to a friend as empathetic writing; becoming the characters, making them personal, taking them into your heart and making them a part of your life. I did that. For the past year and couple of months, I’ve been getting to know the minds of a fictional set of friends. I can tell you how they feel about each other, how they would react in any given situation. Shit, I know their blood types, their most personal thoughts… they are each little tiny pieces of myself. I suppose that it’s a dangerous way to go about things. Say if one of them dies, a piece of you dies. Well, this week every single one of my Bus Stop friends died. They all went cliff diving and forgot to take parachutes. At least that is how it feels. If I seem a bit distraught for the next few days, it’s because I am. I don’t think this is okay. I don’t want to feel better. I refuse to look at the bright side. There is a giant hole in my heart and in my life where this thing and these people used to exist.

At least I’m okay with the way the story ended. When I wrote out the arc that included this weeks scripts, it had several more in it. They were all neatly organized and ready to go through a final edit. However, if it had ended anywhere else in the arc, it would have felt off. Wednesday’s comic took it back to where it began in a way. Three friends: Ben playing it cool, Chris giving Iggy crap about eating things he shouldn’t, and Iggy drooling over horses. Seriously, if there was a last image of them that I wanted to show, that would be it. And today’s comic? (Number 150 by the way, a rather nice sounding number to end on I suppose.) Well, let’s just say that I had no idea that when I wrote the script out of Ali waiting out her shift in the coffee shop that she would never stop waiting… I also could not have predicted that I would end up feeling the exact same way she does in the last two panels. I have been in a constant state of resting my head in my hands and letting my head fall to the table since Tuesday. It was a bittersweet and perfect comic to end on without knowing the end was coming.

So, yes, I feel like crap. Yes, I already miss writing the comic. Yes, I kind of just want to drink a few mojitos and forget that today is what today is. I’m sure that to most of you, this sounds pathetic. It’s just a comic and I will find something else, but it’s more than that. A piece of me is missing, and for today, I don’t really care to try and make my heart stop aching.