It's a simple word, but yet possibly one of the hardest of all to say. If you ask me, it's pretty damn fascinating.
As I find myself having said goodbye to Stockholm and what was undoubtedly the most incredible year of my life, it's safe to say a feeling of sheer denial is definitely within me - it's surreal to think that the word goodbye has officially been said and the leaving process of what seemed to be a never ending period of enjoyment has been complete.
Reality check right there - goodbye's suck.
Picture this: you move to a new city, a new environment, a new way of life. You agree to spend a year of your life somewhere that you've never actually been to before and know nothing about (call me crazy). You agree to move into an apartment completely unfurnished in which you need to make your own as well as agree to take on the commitment of investing time, energy, strength (and not to mention a hell of of a lot of money) into an experience that could ultimately be an incredibly successful one or one that is not quite so.
Got that picture in your head guys? Okay, good - because that was me a year ago. I know, right? A year..how did that happen? *pinching myself*. It really is hard to believe that this time 365 days ago I was living it up over the pond stateside combined with preparing those last minute details for coming back to Europe to embark upon my Stockholm adventure. It's safe to say that time has gone past too incomprehensibly quickly for me to accept and, well, needless to say, saying what would be classed as goodbye to the city of Stockholm, the people within it and my complete adoration for Sweden and their culture in general, was one of the toughest experiences I've encountered to date. But my question is, why?
The dreaded G word...the dreaded word of goodbye, the dreaded feeling of facing the reality that something is over, the dreaded experience of putting to bed a period in your life or a circumstance or situation that has passed it's 'sell by date'. Now let's just clear something up right away - goodbye's are horrible, ghastly things that are far too emotional and are in general, something we as a society (let's be honest here), like to avoid as much as possible. But yet nevertheless, they have to happen, and happen they do. So why is this? What makes this word goodbye carry such negative connotations? Is it the word itself? Or is it more the typically negative concepts and associations that spring to mind when we imagine a situation of what a goodbye will entail?
It seems that when I step back and evaluate the recent experiences I've been lucky enough to have had, the past year has in actuality been what can only be described as a whirlwind of goodbye's and as depressing as that sounds, has bizarrely been the best year of my life.
So how can a year of your life that consists of so many goodbyes be such a positively filled one? If you ask me it comes down to a case of how you deal with goodbye's - if you make them a huge, emotional, weight-filled problem then the reality will be just that - a huge, emotional, weight-filled problem. If there's one thing we're bad for in this day and age it's dramatisation - everything is dramatised, from the small insignificant aspects of our daily lives, to the bigger, more important picture.
I've come to notice that people heavily underestimate just how hard saying goodbye is going to be, but what's truly ironic is that we have created the problem of how hard saying goodbye is ourselves. Yes, I'm saying that goodbye's are a man-made problem. I mean let's look at what happens when we say goodbye - when we say goodbye, we tell ourselves a story. We tell ourselves a story about how life is going to unfold after the literal goodbye takes place and so with this in mind, instantly assume the worst possible outcome is going to happen. "Oh I'll never be here again", "I can't believe this is the end", "We're never gonna stay in contact with each other", "The distance just isn't gonna work" - now these are just some of the sheer abundance of stories we falsify in our minds and assume are going to happen after the G word comes into action. Nevertheless, this isn't just a one way system - the same can be said for those that are at the receiving end of a goodbye - when they say goodbye, they tell themselves a story about another person's life, they tell themselves that they will never see this person in this particular place or environment again or that this person "will not want to see them" or will be "too busy to keep in touch" or whatever it may be. With this in mind, we see a continually negative pattern emerging, we see this swarming circular form of negativity attached to the word goodbye and it's aftermath.
What strikes me is this - people go to work, school, university, college or whatever it may be almost every day of their lives, they gain so much knowledge, albeit some of it pointless, every day of their lives, they gain qualifications, life skills, hard doses of reality and so much more everyday of their lives, but yet when the cards are on the table, they can't cope with something as simple as a goodbye - something that really, if we step back and look at with a sense of rationality, is only a small curve in life's endlessly unpredictable and turbulent path.
If you ask me, nothing has to be a goodbye in this apparently cosmopolitan world we inhibit today and if I'm honest, I don't really know why the word of goodbye receives such a 'hype'. Now I'm by no means saying here that I'm not an emotional person and I was not in tears when I was, for example, leaving Stockholm. I'll hold my hands up and admit that I certainly felt the strain when leaving, but one thing I never said? Goodbye. I refused to, in fact, I can remember having this conversation with so many people in the weeks running up to my departure as packing rates increased and the realisation that my year was coming to an end became the quick reality. It was never going to be a goodbye, it was going to be a see you later.
One of my favourite disney movies when I was a child was Peter Pan, the story of a boy that simply never wanted to grow up, a story so simple yet so irresistibly compelling. When I look back now and watch such films again, they present to me a much stronger message beyond the fun-filled magic of fairytales, fictional characters, colours and animation - Peter Pan, or perhaps more accurately and rightfully so, Walt Disney, has taught us that we should "never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting". If goodbye's are so emotionally-fuelled with sadness and gut-wrenching heartache, then why do we have to say them? I feel many people are failing to realise a fundamental point - goodbye's are very much optional.
We live in a world where our lives are interconnected like never before, we have the ability to communicate with the other side of the planet by the click of a button and be there ourselves via air travel in less than 24 hours - goodbye's are not necessary if you do not want them to be.
Any of those who know me well will know my sheer adoration for J.K Rowling, who perhaps has produced my favourite quote of all time. "As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters." To anyone reading this, life is too short for goodbye's and our hearts and minds too sensitive. Turn a goodbye into a see you later and never look back.
So, with that in mind, I shall stop here. I do hope, however, that this proved it's worth to someone, somewhere, out there.
Much love and I won't say goodbye, I'll just say until we meet again.
L xo
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