Saying Goodbye

May 24th 2019

As you are reading this, I am somewhere new…

This is my first post after my move, however, I am writing it before I even get there. I figured that I would be way too busy my first full day at my new house to sit down and really write something meaningful, so I decided to give myself a short break for the weekend and get it done a little early (so you’ll get my thoughts on things soon).

Saying goodbye is not something I am good at. I am bad with change and I find it unsettling. I am a creature of habit and, despite being so welcoming to new things entering my life, have trouble letting go.  Saying goodbye doesn’t mean I have to let go of everything I had in New York, it just means accepting that things will be different now.

My friends will still be there for me, just not within driving distance. The places I love and the things I like to do will still exist, I will just have to rediscover them elsewhere. Life is going to change and stay the same all at once, but a goodbye is a goodbye no matter what, even if it is really just a “see ya later.”

I have handled things better than I thought so far. Maybe because things haven’t full sunk in yet, but I have cried way less than I expected to. And I feel like the anxiety hasn’t had the same weight as it has in previous months.

I think it is because I chose to grieve early. I started grieving over my move far before I even really began to experience it which sucked at the time, but is way better for me now. I sort of feel numb to it now.

The weirdest goodbyes were the ones that I didn’t know were happening at the time. Sometimes you don’t realize when you go to somewhere for the last time. I think it is for the best though, because if I had realized then I probably would have gotten to emotional or precious over silly things like my last trip to my favorite sushi restaurant or the gas station I like.

Some goodbyes were really tough, like my last day at my yoga studio. That studio is where I fell in love with yoga, what made me decide to train to become a teacher, and where I did a lot of my growing over the past 3 and a half years.Hugging my favorite instructor felt weird because, what felt like a regular Thursday yin class became an emotional roller coaster real quick. But it also sort of soothed me. It reminded me that I have learned so much and I have so much to take with me.

Leaving work hurt more than I expected. It is weird to find a job that I was so passionate about, so early in my life. I hope to find a job I love that much again, with people I enjoy being around. Saying goodbye hurt but made me feel empowered because I knew I made a difference, I was appreciated, and I grew…a lot. I am so genuinely appreciative of the opportunities I had to experiment with my interests while I was working there.

Saying goodbye to friends hurt the most…and the least. It has been strange because I see my friends a lot but also not much. I feel like I am always busy, but have also become accustomed to large periods of separation from my friends as we all grow up and get into our separate things like work, dating, and general adult stuff. It hurts to say goodbye, but in the age of social media, my friends are just a message, call, or video call away.

Closing the door of my childhood home was the hardest for me because I know I will probably never go back and part of me never wants to. I want to remember it how it was to me. I grew up there and everything about it had a story to me and whoever I experienced things with. I remember home movies of me coming down the steps at the front of the house on Christmas morning. I remember family holiday dinners at the dining room table (that is now in a dump somewhere). I remember so many laughs, cries, deep chats, and memories from every inch of that house. But now I have to start somewhere new.

Goodbye isn’t all it is cracked up to be. It isn’t a simple hug and a send off, but it also isn’t Earth-shattering or as devastating as I expected it to be. The world keeps on turning and things will continue on.

Here’s to a lot of new hellos.

Jess~