I've said a lot of Goodbyes this semester, hard goodbyes, necessary goodbyes, forced goodbyes, and finally just the normal goodbyes that everyone has to go through in life.
The first major goodbye, I was standing in the Seattle Airport with two suitcases not only full of clothes and shoes, but also full of memories of the best summer that I had ever had. I was heart broken and fought back tears saying goodbye to my parents, thinking the whole time how ridiculous I should feel, but not feeling any shame for my sadness. Three months after High school graduation I moved out and went to college, never spending more than 2 weeks at time back home with my family, either working through the summer or doing summer school. This summer was different, I spent 6 weeks with them, basking in the sun on the dock, swimming in the lake, eating the most delicious food, taking long walks around capital lake, and just spending every moment with them that I could. It mended my broken heart, cleared my head, solved all my problems, and saying goodbye to them and those precious moments pulled at my heart strings. Blinking back the tears, I handed the security officer my boarding pass and crossed the invisible line back to independence and adulthood knowing there was no turning back now.
The second major goodbye was necessary. Realizing that a substantial person in my life wasn't the person that I thought she was anymore and finally knowing that I couldn't surrounded myself with her almost destructive presence anymore, I separated myself. I felt like in order to progress in life we no longer could be friends. Doing so proved to be much more beneficial then costly. People change and in tough situations it either brings out the worst in them or the best. Unfortunately, I realized I couldn't give anymore to this person and that nothing would ever be good enough for her. There would always be a problem that was unfix-able, and no matter how much I tried or worked at the relationship, I'd always come out feeling like the one at fault. So I moved on and although it hurt, I said a necessary Goodbye.
Sitting on my bed last week, tears streaming down my face in true sadness, I said the final and last goodbye. Being so prolonged the tears where not only for sadness but for relief. A sense of freedom washed over me, everything was finally over, I let go of someone I'd known for so long and had trusted with my heart. So I said goodbye. I knew that I lost something that I could never replace again, but the goodbye was so essential for my life that it didn't matter. Asking myself how can it take just one minute to say hello to someone and a lifetime to say goodbye. They say a goodbye is never truly painful unless you're never going to say hello again, and I think that's why this goodbye was so real, because I will never say hello to him again, never talk to him the same way again, this goodbye was forever.
Luckily I've said many Hello's this semester as well, and with those came the reopening of my heart to friendships and different types of relationships. I said hello to the most unlikely friendships I've ever had but also the best I've ever had.
I said hello and opened the door to one of the most beautiful friendships I've ever had. To someone who I know I'm going to be friends with for a long long time, forever. The friendship is equal, well balanced and both of us carry an equal weight and strive to feed the fire of the friendship everyday. She's always there for me with my ridiculous insecurities, always laughs at my funny sayings, and lends an ear to hear the deep secrets of my life. She is my sanity, my strength, and my rock to lean on when the storm of life is too much. One night both of us vulnerable, we told the stories of our life, the pain, the joy, the things that define our souls, even the people we've loved and lost along the way, that night I said Hello to my best friend.
I never realized how saying hello can be so hard, how opening a window and putting yourself out there can be so difficult, but the Story of life is to count and hold on to all those hellos, like your soul depended on it.
