Good-Riddances

Good-byes are, by their very nature, some of the worst things in life.

Seriously think for a minute. Even those good-byes that seemed like good-riddances, those that just needed to happen for the health or happiness of both parties involved, those where your heart is broken and/or you are breaking someone else's. If you are saying good-bye to someone, even someone who has hurt you deeply, the mere fact that you are taking the time and energy to say those words means they affected your life in some significant way. Even those good-riddances; good-byes to a nemesis, an especially obnoxious relative, or an opponent.

When I was fourteen, I heard the words "love thine enemy" in an inexplicably strong way. To this end, I wrote a letter to my long time nemesis, Allie. We had competed for the same position on our travel basketball team for four years, and were exact opposites in the hallways of our middle school. Allie wanted desperately to be one of the popular girls; I didn't really care that much (I had been given an opportunity to hang out with them at one point, and they spent an entire afternoon talking about their boyfriends... they were eleven.). I was the quintessential nerd; Allie looked at me every day with a slight sneer. I spent far too much time thinking and worrying about the pain she caused me (you can't ignore a sneer). There was also a rumor we had a crush on the same boy.

So when I knew I was going to be going to high school in a different state, I wrote her a letter, saying that I held no grudge and I hoped she would flourish (or the fourteen-year-old equivalent). I wrote out my good-bye, and put her to rest in my mind. I never heard back from her, of course. But even that good-bye, one of the most good-riddance-ish imaginable, acknowledged the relationship that we had, even if it was one based entirely on animosity.

Animosity is a certain kind of love, and can be as all-consuming as the most passionate romance or deepest friendship. So what does this tell us? The only good-byes that don't affect us are the ones that don't matter to us. The ones we actually don't make the effort to say, the mediocre band director, the friend-we-hung-out-with-for-the-last-few-years-but-not-that-much, the cat lady down the street who used to stare at us as we walked by.

And we all know the agony of a farewell said to someone we love or have loved, whether it be for a long time, a not-so-long time, or forever. It's those forevers that are the worst. Though I'll leave it up for debate which is worse: the goodbyes you know are forever, or those you don't know are forever, but turn out to be that way as the person is yanked from you. I've had more of the latter than the former in my life, but both are excruciating.

So every good-bye is hard. But does that mean we shouldn't say them? Does that mean we should let life go by without making the connections that lead to hard good-byes? To avoid that pain of separation? CERTAINLY NOT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

As my friend, who will likely never read this blog (or so I hope), quotes Henry Rollins:

I think if you're alive and you wanna be into something, you should be on it like... you should be nuts about it, or be nuts about something else, but don't be halfway about anything, cause life is too short. If you're gonna love someone, LOVE 'em, if you're gonna hate 'em , HATE 'em, but don't be like, "Oh, I don't know how I feel about it." Have an opinion about something, otherwise don't show up at MY dinner table, cause it's gonna be boring conversation.


Well, actually, DO show up at my dinner table. I'd love to have you.