Farewell

Sometimes I’ll come in your dream

as an unexpected and unsolicited guest.

Don’t leave me on the road outside –

do not bolt the doors.

I will enter quietly. I will sit down quietly,

I will look into the darkness to see you.

When I’ve had enough of looking at you –

I’ll kiss you and go away.

Nikola Vaptsarov

But sometimes – sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes we want it to always stay and never be “Goodbye!”. We want there to be no goodbyes or for it to be somewhat “easy” and natural. To be romance and poetry, not drama and horror film.

Sometimes I say “See you soon” and I know it will be “Never”. It makes the opportunity to turn around and continue on my path somehow easier, or perhaps more possible.

When do we learn how to “close” a situation or say goodbye to it? Why do we need this? “Closing” is a professional template, but in fact if you leave two doors open at the same time it is likely to become draughty. And sometimes it’s impossible to get to the next door and open it if I haven’t closed the previous one.

Often we are left with unfinished situations. The ones that feel like a stone around our neck or something we have tucked away “Hey, there in the far cupboard”. The problem is that even if we don’t see them, we know that there is something unfinished there in the far cupboard waiting for us. Waiting for us patiently and systematically. Those things in the closed cupboard, however, determine how I will organize the rest of my home because there, there is a cupboard full of things I can’t put anything I need in my current home. And so, to close one situation I should somehow be able to say “Bye!” or “See you soon!” and somehow affirm within me that only if I release my hands from this situation can I freely touch the next.

But how do I end and move on if I haven’t done my best? Here comes the moment of realization that I can’t think of an ending that is perfect, easy and painless. Yes, after the end a new beginning is born, but at the end of the end there is an end and it is usually accompanied by sadness. The sadness that there is an end and the hope for a new beginning. We often jump quickly from one end, immediately into something new, as if as a mechanism to divert our gaze from the sun that burns our temples instead of our eyes.

There is something beautiful about the ending – the beauty of the reception that reminds me of beautiful sunsets. Goodbye is like sunset, beauty, then darkness and finally sunrise – but the sunrise of a new day. A day that starts over, sometimes so far removed from the day before…. “And what happened to the darkness? I don’t like dark! It’s scary!” Darkness is the necessary time and space in which to chew on or assimilate the day gone by or our goodbye. Darkness is the time to prepare for the next day. Darkness is the time in which I can’t see, but perhaps dream. “Sometimes I will come in your dream!” Darkness is the promise that I will be here as long as you remember me….

I say goodbye, but leave myself a tiny peephole to peek through when I need to. Then I’ll remember that I can say goodbye but have you as long as I remember you….

Situations in our lives are like life itself – they have a beginning and an end. The question is where is my focus – on the fear of the end or on the pleasure of living now? Of course, sometimes the only possibility is the one we see. That doesn’t make it better or worse, it makes it possible for us.

Goodbye is accompanied by sadness and pain, just like childbirth. What would it be like to celebrate every goodbye as the birth of a future beginning?

Sometimes we don’t need to know, we just need to be – just as we are – imperfect, angry, shouting, angry, sad, discontent, inadequate, inexperienced. That’s what makes us human, that’s part of natural intelligence. See you soon!