(it’snever)good bye
i’m one of the few people i know who can’t wait to be an old man. not in the sense that i’m a homebody, but i think it’ll be so great to have all the time in the world to look back on all the memories acquired throughout the years. when my study abroad program ended, one of my best friends and i spent 10 days visiting family in the united kingdom/ireland and spent a majority of that time hanging out with 80-year-olds. it was absolutely wonderful. they loved to tell us funny stories and they loved to hear all about all our crazy antics. maybe it was because i was fresh off of 4 months of non-stop adventure and once-in-a-lifetime experiences but i was a little envious of them. they all had families who loved them, people to live vicariously through, and they were just loving the little bubble that kind of became their life. i was totally inspired. won’t it be great to be content just walking around the block and, inevitably, be that crazy grandparent that drives the family crazy with how goofy and backwards they are but that everyone still loves anyways?
i feel like saying goodbye has become so insignificant lately. no matter how long you’re away from people, dynamics and relationships are always totally the same when you reunite. it’s a bit strange when everything is the same but you feel that you’ve changed or grown apart from what you used to know. but the comfort of that familiarity is always there. and when we were saying goodbye after the study abroad program was over, the people i became closest to and i were just like “woah, this is surreal… but this is definitely NOT a forever goodbye.” and it isn’t.
in a way i think i need to have more faith in the tiny little global village that we live in. because even though i know there are so many reoccurring characters in life, whenever i say goodbye to a big character, a little part of me wonders if it’s forever. in some cases, maybe i even hope for that? but then again, if you can rely on life for anything, you can rely on it for being totally unpredictable and random. it never really is goodbye, is it?
