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I’ve said goodbye knowingly and unknowingly multiple times in my life. A lot of the times I didn’t care, or didn’t realize the finality of my own words. When I left for college I said goodbye to a lot of friends and said I would keep in touch, slowly those friendships withered away and were replaced by new ones. Fortunately, or unfortunately, social media doesn’t let us completely cut off all communication. You may still get annoyed by pretentious Facebook statuses or get requests to follow on Instagram from people who you haven’t spoken to you in years. While the emotions you once had for them have disappeared, they haven’t been eradicated from your life. Ok I started rambling about social media. Back to the point, I said goodbye not realizing that these people would not mean much to me just a short year later. That is why goodbye didn’t seem too difficult. Another kind of unrealized goodbye comes with death. I said goodbye to my grandfather when I left for college thinking I would see him again in a few months, he was planning a visit anyway. A day before his flight, my grandfather died a peaceful death. It was traumatizing, like any death is, but it made me think that I preferred his unexpected death over a slow painful demise in a hospital bed. I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye, but would I really want that?
As this year’s graduation class packs their bags and I see them for maybe the last time in my life, I have mixed feelings. I was having a conversation with one of the few leaving for another country, and he said what excites him about life is the fact that change is the only constant. Those may not be his exact words but I’m pretty sure I captured the sentiment. I know this seems like a bit of a tangent but bear with me. It is pretty upsetting to think of friendships as something transient, you want them to last through decades and lifetimes, but they rarely do. There are just a handful actually that survive our lifetime because everything is in flux. You change, I change, and you changed me, and I changed you. If even one line from this blog stuck with you, then I have made an impact on you. The people that inspired me to write this have also made bigger more lasting impacts on me. They have loved me, and made me cry. They have protected me and broken down in front of me. They have let their guard down or caused me to harden my walls. I have loved them or hated them. But some part of me now belongs to them because they changed it. Maybe someone will come along one day and change it again. Or maybe not, but I think we carry people with us, in our stories, our laugh lines and our scars.
I may be saying goodbye now, but I’ll be there in your stories, on your news feeds and maybe even your mailboxes. So how permanent is goodbye? Not at all. I’m scared now of letting you go, and of change, but I’ll change and you’ll change and we’ll be happy with other people and other faces that will come into our lives, stir them up a little and go on their merry way. I’m just glad to have met you. Because if it wasn’t for you, this exact version of myself writing this blog entry today would not be me. I might be close variation, but not me as I am now. And because life is transient I will wish the class of 2014 good luck in life but I won’t say goodbye, because it’s arbitrary. And while we’re in flux maybe you’ll come crash into me again one day. A distant wave at an airport, an overzealous hug at a restaurant, and awkward introduction to the new faces in our lives, I’ll see you around.
love May in New York City, because finally, we say goodbye to our jackets and scarves and layers of insulation. Maybe not our rainboots just yet but I’ll take it. May also means saying goodbye to another class. Another group of friends that were a constant in your life will just disappear and not be there when you get back from summer break. It’s a bummer, kind of like when you check the weather and after a weekend of sunshine is a week of thunderstorms. Sorry espadrilles, I’ll have to put you away again. I’ve said goodbye knowingly and unknowingly multiple times in my life. A lot of the times I didn’t care, or didn’t realize the finality of my own words. When I left for college I said goodbye to a lot of friends and said I would keep in touch, slowly those friendships withered away and were replaced by new ones. Fortunately, or unfortunately, social media doesn’t let us completely cut off all communication. You may still get annoyed by pretentious Facebook statuses or get requests to follow on Instagram from people who you haven’t spoken to you in years. While the emotions you once had for them have disappeared, they haven’t been eradicated from your life. Ok I started rambling about social media. Back to the point, I said goodbye not realizing that these people would not mean much to me just a short year later. That is why goodbye didn’t seem too difficult. Another kind of unrealized goodbye comes with death. I said goodbye to my grandfather when I left for college thinking I would see him again in a few months, he was planning a visit anyway. A day before his flight, my grandfather died a peaceful death. It was traumatizing, like any death is, but it made me think that I preferred his unexpected death over a slow painful demise in a hospital bed. I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye, but would I really want that?
As this year’s graduation class packs their bags and I see them for maybe the last time in my life, I have mixed feelings. I was having a conversation with one of the few leaving for another country, and he said what excites him about life is the fact that change is the only constant. Those may not be his exact words but I’m pretty sure I captured the sentiment. I know this seems like a bit of a tangent but bear with me. It is pretty upsetting to think of friendships as something transient, you want them to last through decades and lifetimes, but they rarely do. There are just a handful actually that survive our lifetime because everything is in flux. You change, I change, and you changed me, and I changed you. If even one line from this blog stuck with you, then I have made an impact on you. The people that inspired me to write this have also made bigger more lasting impacts on me. They have loved me, and made me cry. They have protected me and broken down in front of me. They have let their guard down or caused me to harden my walls. I have loved them or hated them. But some part of me now belongs to them because they changed it. Maybe someone will come along one day and change it again. Or maybe not, but I think we carry people with us, in our stories, our laugh lines and our scars.
I may be saying goodbye now, but I’ll be there in your stories, on your news feeds and maybe even your mailboxes. So how permanent is goodbye? Not at all. I’m scared now of letting you go, and of change, but I’ll change and you’ll change and we’ll be happy with other people and other faces that will come into our lives, stir them up a little and go on their merry way. I’m just glad to have met you. Because if it wasn’t for you, this exact version of myself writing this blog entry today would not be me. I might be close variation, but not me as I am now. And because life is transient I will wish the class of 2014 good luck in life but I won’t say goodbye, because it’s arbitrary. And while we’re in flux maybe you’ll come crash into me again one day. A distant wave at an airport, an overzealous hug at a restaurant, and awkward introduction to the new faces in our lives, I’ll see you around.