I’m home again after having completed another year at college. I did the six-hundred mile drive with my dad and brother yesterday. It’s a yearly ritual; it is a pattern that must be followed. As the Moddey Dhoo once said, “The world continues to spin, pup.”
Obvious observation of the day: goodbyes are hard. I won’t see most of my friends until next January, and even then, I won’t see some select few of my friends until September 2011. I suppose my emotions are latent, because it wasn’t until I was driving home with my brother along the vast stretches of empty land between College and Home that the importance of the moment seemed to catch up with me. Oh, it hurts to be separated from people I care about.
When I was graduating from high school, I had a similar set of feelings. Pensive, melancholic, aware of a freshly-made emptiness. I’ve managed to keep in contact with the people I care most about from high school; it’s a simple transitive property action to keeping in contact with friends for eight months for summer/abroad instead of just three months for summer. I don’t remember the context of the conversation, but my aunt told me something that mounted to this: in every stage of life, you say goodbye to the people you’ve met and grown to love, but it gets easier over time. This time around, it has been easier, but not by much.
While still at college, I thought that the distances separating my friends and me would seem like nothing because of technology. I would be available by Facebook, on this blog, on my cell phone for a few weeks before going to Madrid. Even with all the technology, though, it’s still lonely.
On a more positive note, I’ve gotten a Spanish book! I’m [going to be] learning! Note to Self: work on putting up happier posts.
Wow, for some reason I thought you left Thursday; I didn't want to bother you during family time, so I didn't try to chat with you. But it turns out I could have been bothering you on-line for a whole extra day!
ReplyDeleteTransitions can be difficult, but your aunt is right. It gets easier with each successive transition. By the time I reached high school we'd moved so many times that graduation had no impact on me. I hadn't grown up there, hadn't grown up with those people, and I had learned in my childhood to envision a future without the people around me in it. Transitions are also the proving ground for friendships -- you learn who are the enduring friends and who were simply friends of convenience. Some will take the "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" course, and some will make that extra effort to keep in touch over time. Thankfully the internet makes keeping in touch FAR easier than it was when I was a kid. ;)
"So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last
Some will just be now and then
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again"
--Billy Joel, "Say Goodbye To Hollywood"--
Pangolin, I did indeed leave Thursday, but my emotions/posts are almost always latent.
ReplyDelete