Goodbye

I have become quite accustomed to goodbyes in my time, but being accustomed to something does not make it any easier. When I was younger I was accustomed to suffering from frequent asthma attacks but that did not make the incapacitating loss of breath fun in any way. As used to them as I am, I still hate goodbyes.

The word itself implies that it is something positive. ‘Good’ bye gives the impression that it is something good. As in “It was nice to see you but I’m happy this time is coming to an end because I know our parting will make me happy.” Saying goodbye to a person or a place has never made me happy. By my definition a goodbye is always something sad, something no one looks forward to, but also something that is inevitable.

In my life I have said six very hard, very painful goodbyes. Each time I’ve moved to a new country I have had to say goodbye to the people and the places I love before my fresh start in a new place with new people. Saying goodbye is hardest when you don’t know for sure when next you will see those people and be able to say hello again. I’ve found, however, that it is never as permanent as you think.

Goodbye, as hard as it is to say, is never final. If you care enough and try enough and want to enough you will see those people again. If someone means enough to you it doesn’t matter how far apart you may be or how long you go without seeing each other. Friends forever is not just a cheesy title, it is a promise. I have gone three or more years without seeing friends that, when reunited, feel as if we were never apart at all. I have gone over a year now without seeing my two closest friends but I still talk to them all the time. With facebook and skype and cell phones and email goodbye is only as final as you allow it to be.

I have also found that every painful goodbye leads to a timid hello. I said goodbye to Trinidad to say hello to Holland. I said goodbye to Italy to say hello to Cyprus. I’m saying goodbye to Cyprus to say hello to Boston. Each time you say goodbye you are moving on to something else. Like that cliché saying goes: when one door closes another opens. If you allow yourself you will discover a new place and make new friends. A goodbye is just a hello waiting to happen; hello to the new experiences you are destined to have and hello again to the people you will inevitably be reunited with in the future.

As The Beatles so melodiously put it, “You say goodbye and I say hello. Hello hello.”