Editor's note: This FanPost was promoted to the Frontpage.

I drove the viaduct on Friday, for no good reason at all except to be up there one last time. I went out of my way to do it, and I put on a playlist of sad songs, I guess that makes me a sentimental person. So there I was, looking out across the sound at the snow-capped Olympics peeking through the clouds that had finally broken just in time to give the city one last perfect day of that incredible view, and I had that strange conflicted feeling of being pulled hard in two ways at once. I knew it had to go, and I was really sad it was going.

I felt the same way when I read the news of Ozzie’s departure. I knew it was coming, it made sense why it would happen, and at the same time it made me really sad, even more than I thought it would. I understand why he would do it, he still thinks he can be the honey badger out on the field, and as you would expect from a honey badger, he will do whatever he has to do for the opportunity to prove he still is the honey badger. Of course he can’t be that player forever, and the Sounders front office is making the conservative and probably prudent choice that he is not worth to them what several other teams are willing to pay for a player that could hit a steep and irreversible decline any day now.

But still. Why don’t you just rip my heart out instead?! Are you fucking kidding me? That man should retire in rave green and have a statue put up just down the road from Griffey’s. Pay him what it takes to keep him here, he makes the team better just by being in the locker room, in the stadium, a part of the team. All our greatest successes came with him on the field, and many of the greatest disappointments came when he wasn’t able to be out there. His heart cannot be questioned, his dedication to the team and the city cannot be questioned, he is every bit a talisman of this franchise.

And yet, I get it. It’s a salary-capped league. The team can’t pay him what he is worth on the open market. The players fought for this level of freedom, and he deserves the chance to be a starter if that is what he thinks is most important to him. Maybe he can keep playing at a high level, drag Minnesota out of the basement, and keep being the honey badger for a few more years. And on the Sounders side, this sure seems like handing the keys to to the team over to Christian Roldan, who can now slide back into the defensive midfield where it seems like he belongs. Maybe he cements himself there not just for the Sounders but with the national team as well. Maybe he takes the captains armband and becomes a legend in his own way. There’s plenty of silver linings here, plenty of reasons for hope. But this feels unmistakably like the end of an era, perhaps one ended prematurely, and without our honey badger will we ever be the same?

I used to drive the viaduct all the time, I lived just off 99 in Fremont and was working down in Georgetown a lot. Even then it was a conflict of emotions, it was general knowledge that the thing wasn’t really safe and needed to come down… but those views! When the earthquake study came out I had nightmares about being on the lower level heading south and ending up in the middle of a concrete sandwich. The thought would make me drive a little faster every time. Eventually I reached a level of zen about it that I think is probably similar to what a base jumper feels right before they send it - I am about to do something with a small but very real chance of dying horribly, and I really should just take a deep breath and enjoy the view.

So I knew as well as anyone that hunk of concrete needed to go. Maybe the city and the waterfront will be better for it, but as the deadline for its destruction approached I have felt an irrational attachment to it. I’m really going to miss that ugly thing. It feels strange to have these feelings for a cold mass of concrete, but it’s not much weirder than the emotional attachment I feel for Alonso, a man I have never met and who I know very little about in reality. I could be mad at Ozzie, after all, he is the one choosing to leave us. I could be mad at Garth too, the cryptic Instagram posts from Alonso seemed to imply a feeling of betrayal on his part, and that makes me feel like this might not have been handled as well as it should have. But I don’t feel any anger.

I hope that someday, in some form, Ozzie will come back and play a testimonial, put on the rave green one last time for the fans, let us give him the ovation he deserves. It’s sad to me that his last action as a Sounder was a poorly taken penalty in a shootout loss to Portland, just like it’s sad that Dempsey’s last shot (for club and country) hit off the post. It’s like we were just barely denied the storybook finale, the cherry on top of our sundae was bitter and rotten.

Watching the official Ozzie tribute video from the team, the part that got me was the look on his face during the shootout win in MLS Cup. That emotion was so pure, you can just feel the passion. That’s what I loved most about watching him play, you feel the passion that flows from him, the determination and the joy, and we got to share in that when he laid those emotions out on the field. The audacious slide tackles, getting in opponents faces, and of course all those times where the honey badger would just go in and take what he wanted, that was joyful soccer, and we were privileged to be a part of it.