Adios

I’ve been thinking about goodbyes a lot lately. I’m not really sure why, it’s not like I have any looming goodbyes coming up or anything, but I’ve just been thinking about them. How some goodbyes seem epic, but aren’t while some are the last goodbye and seem like nothing.

I guess the interesting thing about goodbyes is that no one is good at them. People can be good at things like poker or golf, we can be excel at public relations or computer programming, but no one, I repeat, no one is good at saying goodbye. It’s something to do with the gravity of the situation that makes us all bad at them. I mean, when do you hug? When do you just wave? When do you cry? And why do some seemingly meaningless goodbyes tear you up inside, when other, pretty big ones leave you with an eerie sense of calm, like you’re ready to move on to the next phase.

And what is it about goodbyes that gets people so riled up? I mean, think of when you first started having to say goodbye, you cried when your mom left you at Kindergarten (or maybe not?), the end of high school felt like the end of the world, literally. Like you would never see anyone ever again and everything would be so different. And then you saw those people at Thanksgiving and nothing had really changed, but somehow by the time you were done with college, everything had changed.

Maybe that’s the scary/exhilarating thing about goodbyes, especially big goodbyes, they mean that something is changing. So maybe our perception of goodbyes rests on our perceptions of change. And here’s where I come out and say it. I love goodbyes. I do. I love the drama, the raw emotion, the not knowing. As much as it does hurt sometimes, I love saying goodbye to people. And the people I’m closest to are my most/least favorite people to say goodbye to. One friend in particular, who happens to live in Europe at the moment, is my most favorite and least favorite person to say goodbye to. I always miss him terribly, but at the same time, we both change and mold while we’re away from each other and it’s exciting to see how he’s changed when we come back together.

I was thinking about this earlier today…many people see the goodbye as an ending, I see it as a beginning. And that has made all the difference.

Peace, Love and Peace Out,
Julia