As my kindergarten teacher once gently explained to my mother, “Transitions make us cry.”
Seventeen years later, I’ve matured past the point of actual tears and tantrums, but there’s no denying that transitions — and, in this case, goodbyes — are hard.
I’ve known since January that I wouldn’t be walking at graduation with my class, but seeing them all go on without me was bittersweet. Heck, even if I had been walking, this would’ve been a hard time; everyone going off into different directions, a community dispersing.
Graduation isn’t the only goodbye going on right now, either. Saying goodbye to my intern friends was, in some cases, even harder than the college goodbyes, since we shared such an intense experience. Similarly, leaving the department with which I interned was weird — as difficult as the job was, I also learned so much and had quite literal once-in-a-lifetime experiences there. I’ve said goodbye to the wonderful women of Renfrew up here as I transition to the Renfrew in my hometown for the summer. I’m temporarily saying goodbye to my identity as a dancer until my health issues calm down. Tomorrow I’ll say goodbye to the wonderful house I’ve lived in all year.
I’m in the midst of saying goodbye to my eating disorder, anxiety, and hosts of other issues that have held me down for too long.
You’d think that would be an easy, victorious goodbye, but it’s not. These issues are also a huge part of my identity, and I’m not quite sure who I am without them.
…And yet, as the Beatles remind us: I don’t know why you say goodbye / I say hello.
Hello, getting to watch my college and internship friends go off around the world to begin new chapters in incredible lives. Hello, new college community that will form this fall. Hello, new friends (who I haven’t met yet) at Renfrew and at my summer job.
Hello, recovery. Nice to see you. We’ve met in passing a few times, but I’ve never given us the chance at being friends. This time I promise not to say goodbye.
Dance. Don't Apologize. 