While April showers bring May flowers. April and May also seem to be seasons that bring a lot of change and a lot of goodbyes. Growing up, summertime goodbyes are really casual. You know that you will see everyone at the pool or at parties during summer. And your closest friends, well, you know that they will be over almost every day. Summer means getting to spend each day with them swimming and hiking and road tripping. Then as life goes on and graduation comes, we all start going our separate ways.
Graduation takes place and we all begin the next stages of our lives. We prepare to move to different cities and move into dorms and houses and apartments. This goodbye feels a little more real, but you know that you'll see people over Christmas and Thanksgiving. At least for a couple of years. Then you go away to college and finish that first season. Those goodbyes feel a little less casual because everyone lives all over. Summer looks a little different from before because you don't get to drive over to everyone's houses anymore.
Goodbyes in college look more like your friends all traveling across the nation back to their homes for summer. Those goodbyes feel a little more significant because they are going to last for a few months. College also brings a few more big changes. Friends are called to new places and experiences and you may not come back to things as they were, even in the fall. People transfer, move, join different programs, etc. These goodbyes start to feel like real goodbyes. The type of goodbyes where you really don't know when you will see that person next.
As we grow up though, the depths of our relationships grow with us. We are left having people in our lives who really matter. We shift into having friends that feel more like family. People we grew up with, not physically, but emotionally. These are the people who held us while we cried the first months of college. These are the people who we made late night airport runs with. The people we celebrated big victories and mourned small losses with. We also ordered lots of pizza and went out and did lots of fun crazy things.
Yes, these are the ones we will stay in touch with and the ones that will matter. Some of us may have hearts that feel a little broken right now over the fact that things will be different when you return to college in the fall. In the midst of it all, remember that you felt the same way this time last year when we all graduated high school and said our goodbyes then. Most of us stayed in touch with the people who really mattered to us then. That same pattern should reign true for us in this next year too.
After all, the people who really matter. The ones who are etched into our hearts and memories with such prominence. Those people are the ones who will stick around. Those are the ones that fate put in our paths with purpose and those are people who will keep popping up in our lives. For now though, it may feel like goodbye but for the people who are going to stay, it's really just see you later. So in the midst of tears, I tell you... I'll see you later.
