How do you say GOODBYE? This is something I often ponder. I don’t like to say goodbye. Saying goodbye can mean several things. Letting go of something you don’t want to let go of, an end to what you know, facing an uncertain future, death, a new beginning, birth. It can mean so many things… is it temporal or permanent. The bitter taste that may pass through before the sweet. A face I may never see again, a moment never to be enjoyed. Change.
And so I ponder now. I know the passing of time. The not knowing what comes next. But if I don’t say goodbye, I can not move on. It is necessary both for my person and the people I leave behind. For they too must say goodbye. It is a letting go of pain where there is. A forgetting of past joys and an embrace of a future that dances slowly towards me…and so I wonder.
Change. They say nothing changes, but change itself. Why does it have to be so? Why can’t I have both the not changing and the change? who says I must exit gracefully? even if the past is painful, it is what I have known, what I know and it offers me some kind of solace. Sad solace.
A clean break. I have tears in eyes. How do I do this. A clean break and saying of goodbyes or do I drag it… I want to drag it. Selfishly so. But I know this will be painful for me and those I leave behind
Showing up. I understand I must show up to say my goodbyes. Why can’t I just disappear? Why make it more painful by showing up? but I understand that if I don’t, neither me or those I leave behind may truly believe I am gone and we will both keep wishing for a comeback. Showing up and saying goodbye, makes for a good dose of reality. Maybe this is what I need.
New beginnings. Until I let go of the past, there can never be a new beginning. This is a road this soul has never threaded before, though the path may be worn.
And so I EXIT… for the world is my playground
Juliet Yaa Asantewa Asante 