I’M BAD AT GOODBYES ¿!
I truly, madly, deeply hate goodbyes. This might be such a harsh statement for an opening line but the feeling of goodbye doesn’t even come close to this. Despite being a product of a well made decision, they still hurt. I’m reminded of quotes explaining how every goodbye is a new beginning. Okay, but what if you’re not ready for it? How do you process the feeling of leaving behind a portion of your life and proceeding further, just like that?
I have starred in many goodbyes that I’d almost become confident that the next one wouldn’t affect me much. Imagine my surprise when I’m proved wrong every other time. Big or small, it’s always momentous.
The first big good-bye I ever said to someone was when I was 8. I had to leave my hometown and along with it,my best friend with whom I literally grew up with. I vividly remember her face in the facade of the window, with the dawn setting in around us. I had bawled my eyes out the previous day and finally waved a sleepy goodbye as she stood staring at me through the window, her hair bedraggled. The heaviness still lingers.
It was my first roommate who told me how tangible being roommates is and crying over their departure has no point. I couldn’t even bring myself to nod. How can I accept that the person whose life was basically intertwined with mine for a year has graduated and is leaving this afternoon? The best friend who just drifted away without a “Tata” crossed my mind. Yeah, my friend hated the word “bye” so much that I erased it from my jargon. It’s “Tata ” now.
When I say goodbyes, I don’t only mean leaving people. It is also the places and experiences I had to wave goodbye. I never got to say a proper goodbye to my college. I’d have basked in its ambience one last time, relished parotta from my canteen, hung out with my friends at the bell tower and turned back at it, knowing that it’s never a goodbye. But, I had to give up this memory and bid farewell through a screen amidst a hundred other faceless voices.
Everytime I move places, I struggle to let go of spaces that I once called home. The empty walls stare at me with the tape marks that held together my posters and a part of my childhood together. That mosaic flooring on which I’ve played a number of board games still crosses my mind everytime I see a dice rolling. I make a collage of those homes and try to smoothen out the edges once in a while.
This quote I randomly scribbled in my notebook catches my glance,
“Goodbyes make you think. They make you realize what you’ve had, what you’ve lost, and what you’ve taken for granted.”
🤗