La ridícula idea de no volver a verte

Goodbye

ɡʊdˈbʌɪ

exclamation

1. Means leaving someone or something, and sometimes never seeing them again.

2. Phrase exchanged between people when going their separate ways.

I’m well aware of the fact that the title of this post is also the exact same title of a book that explains the incredible life and discoveries of Marie Curie, an unstoppable woman who changed the curse of history. However, as much as I would love to be literate enough to write an article about the discovery of radiation and the logic behind it, the truth is I’m simply not equipped to do so. Instead, I decided to borrow the title of this book to write about something I can’t fully comprehend yet, but that has rewired my being on more than one occasion: goodbyes. 

I guess when most of us think about goodbyes, our mind instantly directs us to the people that we have parted ways with; we tend to forget that saying goodbye also applies to things, to feelings, to dreams, to ourselves. 
If you think about it, isn’t life simply a process of mastering the art of having something and then learning how to live without it?

I believe that one of the things that makes life so incredibly magical is its coincidences; those perfect instants when the Universe feels magnanimous and grants us the opportunity of meeting someone or discovering something that completely changes everything. Isn’t one of the perks of being human the fact that there are days, or even minutes, when everything in our life conspires in just the right order to find exactly what we need, sometimes not even being aware of the fact that we're looking for it? 

But the part that no one tells you is that on many occasions, more than anyone would like to admit, for diverse reasons, life often forces you to look at those coincidences straight in the eye and tell them your paths are starting to diverge, life is starting to take you on a new path, a path that doesn’t have room for them. Goodbyes are hard because we often don’t understand why they’re necessary. Why would anyone have to leave behind something that they can’t picture living their lives without? 

There have been times when I’ve been forced to make sense of goodbyes. I’ve had to understand why I was leaving versions of myself behind, why I had to say goodbye to people I was starting to love, why my parents had to stay in a different continent than the one I was heading towards, I’ve had to make amends with the fact that most of my friendships wont last forever, I’ve had to learn how to say goodbye to things I used to believe in, to concepts that used to define me, to a bunch of beliefs that used to dictate my actions. 

However, with time I’ve come to understand that one of the biggest fallacies we humans indulge in is believing that there’s an explanation for everything in our lives, that the dots always connect, the famous “everything happens for a reason” bullshit. At least for me, believing this has often brought a lot of heartaches, because the truth is, more often than not, the dots don’t connect, there’s simply not an explanation for everything that happens in our lives. Life happens, things happen, and sometimes we’re forced to do things or we’re faced with situations that we don’t fully comprehend or that we believe we don’t deserve, but trying to make sense of them can be exhausting. The minute I decided to stop looking for explanations, was the exact same minute that everything became more clear.  

Saying goodbye is an act that changes people, be it for good or for bad, but I don’t believe there’s anyone out there who can claim they were the exact same person they were before they said goodbye to someone or something significant. For me, goodbyes have always ignited something in me, they have forced me to reboot my life, they have been turning points, they have marked all of my ends and also all of my beginnings. 

One of my all-time favorite words is retrospective; when you look back on your life as if it were a landscape laid out behind you and you can just observe it for as long as you want, without touching it, just looking, admiring, enjoying, piecing together the parts of the puzzle. When I retrospectively look at my life, I realize that most of my goodbyes didn’t have an explanation, but they certainly had a purpose. 

We tend to regard our encounters in life as magical coincidences… but aren’t goodbyes magical coincidences as well?

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Sincerely yours, 

Natalia