Grief over a restaurant closing

My favorite restaurant closed permanently yesterday.  I didn't realize it when I scootered by this morning but thought it weird that the bar stools were down instead of turned upside down on the bar as they usually are in the morning before opening.  It wasn't until a headline crossed my phone that it registered why.

This is the restaurant friends met me at the day I moved out and the same restaurant friends celebrated at with me one year later.  It's the place where I started learning to talk to other people, especially with a certain bartender who I always hoped to catch.  It was a space where people remembered me and welcomed me.

It's where I went for delicious chocolate cake when I really didn't want to eat dinner.  It's where I often went because my fridge is perpetually empty.   

It feels like such a big loss.

I almost stopped in yesterday.  I kind of wish I had so I could have one last  meal although I wouldn't have known in the moment that it would be my last.  I suppose we never know when our last moment of anything will be until it is over.

I joked today as I tried to process that clearly, the only solution is to move.

I chatted with a work friend last week about some of my disappointments with friends and she told me that I probably have or will outgrow them all, including her.  I don't know that I will truly outgrow all of them but I do think there is some truth to what she said.  My growth has been so accelerated this past year and a half that it is only logical that some (maybe even much) of what I came to know and love during this time will stay behind in this season when I move on (to whatever is next in store for me).

And based on my reaction to this restaurant closing, there is definitely going to be some grief in this process.