The door: a freewriting exercise

This is a 100-word freewriting exercise that I wrote last November about someone who was once very important to me. It's a stream-of-consciousness piece in which I focused on an object--in this case, the door to my house--and allowed it to drive the direction of my thoughts. I like to use this exercise as a warm-up on the days when I'm stuck and the writing just doesn't want to flow. I've always found that it provides a good jump-start for the day's work.

I am looking at the door to this house and remembering another door, one from long ago, an apartment door, and I'm thinking of the day you walked out--the last day you walked out--and how I didn't realize then that I wouldn't see you again, that you wouldn't ever buzz my apartment and ask if you could come up, and I think about how maybe it's better this way, that I didn't know that the end was really the end, that I didn't know that day that the words we said were the last words we'd ever say.