If you were to ask me the one thing that I hate more in this world than lizards, I’d say goodbyes. There is nothing worse than having to say goodbye, whether it be to friends, family, pets, or even that crumpled old t-shirt that you never wear.
Since I was little, I’ve hated goodbyes. There’s no good in goodbye, no happiness or well wishes. I guess I’ve always seen it this way because goodbye usually means change—that something is happening, someone is moving, someone is going away. For some, it’s a temporary goodbye, like when going on vacation or away to school. No matter the duration of the time, there’s still an end date -- still the knowledge that God willing, we will see that person again.
These goodbyes are fairly easy, yeah they hurt for a while, yeah we’re nostalgic thinking about the people, or the places, or the memories we left behind. But there’s always going to be the day when we get to return, an expiration date when the goodbye changes to a hello.
What about the goodbyes that don’t expire? What about the indefinite goodbyes?
Those are the ones that I hate (and consequently, the ones that are worse than any turmoil a lizard could cause me). Maybe for obvious reasons, maybe because there’s too much change, maybe because the people we met were so awesome that we can’t believe we never knew they existed and now don’t know how to live without them. Maybe because according to my favorite Disney character, “saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”
This summer, I have had the opportunity to meet some pretty incredible people. It was a summer full of people I know I will probably never see again, but hope and pray that one day I might have the fortune of doing so. But it was also a summer filled with indefinite goodbyes, full of pain and the feeling of loss so real it made my chest hurt. I got to meet people, some for a span of less than a couple of hours, that made me ache at the thought of not meeting them again.
It’s these goodbyes that get me—the ones that not only accompany change but also imply permanence.
And as I sit here and think about all this, I wonder: what if there is a hidden beauty in all of this? Could change (and therefore, goodbyes) be powerful?
I think so.
I think there’s power in realizing that change is coming our way, and being okay with it. I think there is a certain brilliance in accepting the goodbyes and embracing what’s to come in the future, sitting back and letting life run its course. There’s a confidence we get when we come to the terms that yeah we might never see these people again.
And it hurts, to think such a heavy thought.
But I suppose we have to remember that if they’re really supposed to be in our lives, they will find a way to be.
And that makes the goodbyes not so bad.
