goodbyes

I think the first time I really understood the difficulty of goodbyes happened a few weeks before I had to leave Cape Town. Things had already begun to change, relationships had developed themselves in a way that inspired separation, and I realized that if I wanted to climb Devil’s Peak, I would have to go and do it on my own.

It was in taking an Uber blindly to the start of a trail up a mountain as the sun threatened to set before I was done that I realized the gravity of making meaningful friends in a temporary situation. I guess we all have those experiences that give us endless moments of clarity, and for me, those moments started when I moved abroad to live in South Africa for a semester. On my solo hike up Devil’s Peak, I realized how quickly I would be moving home, but more importantly, how far away some of the friends I had made would then be living from me.

I guess what I’m trying to convey is the fact that I’m starting to learn that goodbyes don’t ever get easier, and the more you travel and meet people and understand the way that difference can become similarity when you take the time to understand the context of people’s actions, the more goodbyes you have to say. I came home from Cape Town, and I missed friends in that way you ashamedly miss people you know you will probably never see again.

I don’t want to think that for the rest of my life I will need to constantly say goodbye in order to keep myself sane, but I can’t think of a life in which staying stagnant will keep my happy. I prefer to understand the world as constantly in motion, and this life as unabashedly short. It makes it easier to justify having to move on from being close to people.