For the first time, I wrote a piece with minimal connection to my current mindset. Just a random thought that I figured might be interesting to dig into.
Side note: writing on the go again—it’s quite nice. For a few hours, you’re surrounded by the same group of people who happen to share the same timeline as you for that short duration—and they become a memory you never even learned the name of.
“To say goodbye is to die a little.” – Raymond Chandler
I don’t know about you, but I’m the type that doesn’t talk much about the things ongoing in life. It’s only after such has passed—after the adieu has taken place—that a particular occurrence would be spoken about.
Only then, will stories be told…and retold again…and again. Whether it be from sporadic reminders on a random Thursday evening or completely out of nowhere, a trigger might bring up memories and frames of our life we have once said goodbye to.
How “goodbye” is defined in this piece: A recognition and acknowledgement that the parting with a person, place, or stage in life is forever.
Goodbyes can be gut wrenching. They can also be beautiful. Heck, they can both at the same time. The one constant that will always be is that they will be memorable.
Good. Bye. There will always be good in the departure, whether it is the memory itself you are leaving behind, or the good you are gaining by letting it exit your life. The bye, well speaks for itself. It’s the “see you later” knowing that later may never arrive.
How the goodbye occurs…the when, and the why. Each farewell becomes a stamp that marks you in some way. Some might stain, some might not, but none are truly blank. Did you have to let someone go? Was your favorite childhood restaurant shut down? Are you in a new part of life?
The most painful goodbyes are those never said—when the story was never finished and the book has been closed.
Is it really forever? Because forever is terrifying. Definite. Confirmed.
It’s not only goodbyes to people, but to parts of your life, to who you once were, and to places you once belonged to. What makes a farewell significant is the memories leaves behind and the quiet aftertaste they carry.
They can happen because you are letting go of something or someone. It can be for their good, or for your own. Whether it is what you wanted or not, it becomes one of the many moments that shapes you. Sometimes, saying goodbye to one is also saying goodbye to a part of you, a version of yourself that only existed with them. A part only they will ever carry of you, and only you will ever carry of them.
In the end, once we are returned to mother nature in an unconscious state of nothingness, all that remains—beyond the skeletons we leave behind—are the cherished memories of you held by those yet to leave.
And when the goodbye is interpersonal, it moves in both directions. Both sides are affected—quiet accumulation of what they have lived, and what they have lost.
You may hate it. You may love it. Either way, it happens, and it will keep happening.
As Pi Patel says, “I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”
How lucky we are to find the good that makes saying goodbye so hard.
No goodbyes from me yet. See you soon,
xffny
EXTENSION OF XFFNY 
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