I have never been someone that did well with goodbyes, and my most recent farewell forced me to think about how I deal with myself in these situations. The fact that it was so abrupt, and quite frankly shocking, made me confront a side of myself that I dared not venture towards in the past. I’m not an overly emotional person (please don’t lump together passion and emotion into the same bucket, they are to be respectfully separate of each other) but the events of recent, have made me brush up against my emotions, those pesky little things that I have always fought on suppressing.

After digging into myself a little, an epiphany hit me like a bolt of lightning: I very rarely say “Goodbye.” Growing up in the world I did, goodbyes were permanent. To me, “Goodbye” meant that you would not see the person you are bidding adieu, again. If we break the word down, it can be a contradiction: “Good” – a positive remark or emotion, “Bye” – leaving. Ok, I take it back, if there is someone that really rubs you the wrong way, maybe saying that little G-word is a good thing, a sigh of relief. But for someone that you hold in high regard, or someone you care about, this is not the term we should be using!

I believe, that for those people in which we leave on good terms with, let’s change the way we speak, let us leave the goodbyes for others. When I speak to someone, I make it a point to not say the word in which I have already mentioned too much… Change it up a little… I won’t tell you what to say, I will never claim to be an expert in any field enough to give solid advice, but let’s try to shake things up a bit! Remove “Goodbye” from the dictionary, and use a different, more unique, salutation when bidding adieu.

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

That is, unless they’ve pissed you off, then you know what to tell them…

Featured Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tekmagika/9123958174/sizes/o/