This is Our Last Goodbye

On Wednesday, the great J.D Salinger passed away, and I just thought I'd take a few minutes to remember him. Safe to say, I morned him a lot more than I did Michael Jackson in June (July? When was it?) Even though he lived till 91, an incredible age for anyone, some little part of me assumed he would live forever, just like I subconsciously do about Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger (Paul McCartney can go suck it. I just don't like him.)

But J.D. Salinger, dead? It just doesn't compute. I can't say I thought about him an awful lot, but he was just there, in some crummy town somewhere. Holden Caulfield was my first real boyfriend, despite being fictional, when I was about twelve. Him and his ridiculous cynicism helped me through most of adolescence, I couldn't have made it through year 8 without him, and two years older, with most of the hell of puberty behind me, I can still see myself, or what I'm probably going to end up being, in Franny and Zooey Glass.

I don't know, it's just sad, thinking that he's gone. J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield, their names were always intertwined, and now one's gone, Holden is just left there, and all those generations of kids who've become him in their heads have made him real despite all his fictionality. And now the only adult who he might rather like is dead. And that totally sucks.