Goodbyes

Goodbyes are weird. I know that nobody likes them, and I’m just the same, although I think my dislike comes primarily from feeling awkward around them than necessarily being especially sad that some period of time is coming to an end. I feel a lot of pressure in a goodbye, like it is meant to be this big outpouring of emotion, all tight embraces and tears and last-second proclamations of affection and admiration of the other person’s character. The whole thing just doesn’t feel very… organic. And inorganic social interactions really aren’t my jam.

I’ve done a couple of my goodbyes already, and I have quite a few more to go. In a way, they feel like something I’m doing for the other parties involved, but on the other hand, I’m not sure how else I’d want it. Another quirk of these particular goodbyes is that some are likely very final, some very not final, but quite a lot are ambiguous. I am pretty sure that after I move, there is a friend in particular who lives here that I might never speak to again. Conversely there is one who I have already started planning a visit with. And there are quite a lot who sit somewhere in the middle; I don’t know what terms our relationship is going to continue on, once we are geographically divided. It could continue to flourish, we could talk a lot, video call and arrange to stay with one another. Or we could recede back to check-ins every few months, one of us rearing our head briefly to ask “how are things? What’s new?” when we are feeling a minor pang of loneliness that needs resolving.

Maybe that’s too cynical a take, but I would hope any readers' expectations of my cynicism are well-set at this point. There are a lot of cheesy, sappy clichés that I feel like I ought to end a blog post about goodbyes on, but for once I’m not in the mood to. Maybe I will once I have actually completed my whole round of pre-departure hand-shaking, hugging and eye-drying.