Goodbyes are like accepting a small piece of your life is dying. There is nothing you can do about the inevitable. Everyone at some point has to say goodbye, but what happens when you aren’t ready? What happens when life hands you a goodbye, and you don’t really get a choice. I mean there are times when we truly don’t get to say goodbye, a loved one dies suddenly, a person just disappears over night from our lives, but what happens when your whole soul is screaming no, but your mind is saying yes. That moment when the only thing that logically makes sense is to say goodbye, but your heartbreaks at the thought. I am standing in that place right now. Smack dab in the middle of making logical choices yet my soul is slowly breaking. I don’t want to leave Texas. I don’t want to walk away from the family that has sheltered and protected me for the last 2 years. They are the people who helped me grow up and face adulthood head on, and yet the time has come to say my goodbyes. I have to walk away from what feels like my real life and enter a time that I know won’t really feel like me or the life I want. But logic has won out. And when it comes to making big decisions that involve thousands of dollars, logic often wins out. And eventually my soul will come to peace with logic, but right now on the edge of the goodbyes it is wavering.
I don’t even know how to say goodbye, not really. I love to just walk out of parties and not say goodbye. I hate how awkward it is and how I have to justify emotions. I don’t know the right things to say or the right emotions to have, I just know that it will be awkward and hard. There is also the hope that you will truly see that person again when you say goodbye. I know some people who will say that they won’t say goodbye but see you later. What happens when there is no assurance of a see you later? What happens if it truly is the last time you ever see someone? How do you reconcile that is your heart? I look around at my life and I can tell you about the people in it and how they have molded and shaped me. How do I walk away knowing that I may never see them again? What words could I possibly use to thank them for all that they have done? Mere words don’t seem like enough to thank people for taking me in and treating me like family, for sitting on a porch and talking for hours as I try to figure out my life. There is so much more that I want to give them, but all I have is thank you.
Goodbyes are hard, and I guess now is the time to start accepting them. I don’t want to think about the amount of goodbyes that will have to be said over the next year. And somehow the hardest of the goodbyes have to come first. Leaving the country for a year will be hard and saying goodbye to my family is something I am not thinking about right now, but my family will always be there. I know that my parents and brothers will always have a place for me and they will always be at the center of my life. But I don’t have the same assurance with the people I have loved in Texas. I don’t know the next time I will really be able to see them or what the future holds. That’s what makes this the hardest set of goodbyes. I’m not ready to lose the connections I have built here or the church that has allowed me to grow into me. But logically it makes the most sense to move back to Michigan before I leave on the Race. And my heart will catch up, hopefully soon. But goodbyes must be said and the time has run out to change my mind. So in the next week I will begin the long and tiring process of saying goodbye to people who have shaped me and guided me through some pretty hard years. And to all the people who I have to say goodbye to, know that I can never have enough words to express how grateful I am for each of you in my life. My goodbyes may come out awkwardly and will more than likely not express the depth of my emotions, but know that I am forever changed because you were in my life. Texas Forever.
P.S. These three will forever hold a piece of my soul. They will be the hardest to say goodbye to.
