At the age of fifteen, I would like to call myself an amateur at hellos and goodbyes, in the same way the police considered Sherlock Holmes an amateur. I’d like to think I’ve made more hellos than goodbyes, and more of both than most people my age. I’d like to think I’ve changed lives, not for the better or for the worse, but simply changed them, because change is the essence of life. I am alive, I live, and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it.
That being said, I think hellos are almost infinitely more bittersweet than goodbyes ever could be. You meet a person, you perceive them, and—knowing that someday they will be taken away from you or you from them—allow them to become part of your life.
Nothing lasts forever, that would be the words of my house. Solemn words to remind you that happiness will turn to suffering, suffering to happiness, monuments to dust, empires to ruins, that mountains were once oceans, deserts and wastelands were once forests and plains, and once upon a time, the Earth was stardust floating in empty space. We come from nothing, to nothing we shall return, and nothing lasts forever.
Smooth skin can gather scars and wrinkles like dust.
Strong muscles can turn to useless fat.
Sleek hair can grow brittle and dull.
Bodies can warp and slump and hunch over, swell like rotten fruit or waste away to nothing.
A sharp mind can grow dull with underuse or overuse or simply time ticking away.
A kind heart can grow bitter, can grow selfish, can grow cruel, corrupted by a corrupt world.
Nothing lasts forever.
I understand how “hello” can be a happy thing, so full of the possibilities of the future, a literally infinite expanse of maybes andwhat ifs, but it is that very potential that makes hellos so bittersweet. Hello, hello, what a wonderful time we could have, but no matter how wonderful it will end and we can only hope it will end wonderfully.
Hello, to me, is a promise. Hello means that you will see this to the end, through the climax to the resolution, if our story has one, or simply to the cliffhanger that leaves no one satisfied. Hello means that someday we will say goodbye, even if it takes years to say it, that dissatisfaction dragging us back for another hello, another hello, another hello when all we need is a goodbye. We will get it, someday. Nothing lasts forever.
Goodbyes are the happier side of the coin, I think. Not happier in the I’m-glad-to-be-rid-of-you way, not happier in the one-door-closes way, but happier in the way that I can say, it happened. All the good and all the bad, counted like tallies on a scoreboard, but once goodbye has been said, it’s all done. We had some good times, and now it is over. The loose ends are tied up. The last stitch is stitched, and now I have another quilt, another patchwork of memories to treasure.
I speak of real goodbyes, which are a rare thing. You can say goodbye as often as you’d like, as often as you say hello, but it won’t be goodbye until you feel it, until you feel the page turn and find the book’s back cover. It is not usually a pleasant feeling, nor a happy one, but it is one of the realest feelings I’ve felt, and I suppose that’s what makes them happier for me.
Hellos are as real as raindrop pearls on a silk strand of spider web. Hellos are as real as the future, which you cannot taste, touch, see, or smell. There is no evidence that the future even exists. There is no evidence that a hello will become anything. Did you just plant a seed or a pebble? Bittersweet uncertainty, that is a hello.
Goodbyes are as real as tears dripping down your eyelashes and a hitch in your throat. Goodbyes are as real as looking back and realizing someone is no longer there, hasn’t been for a long time. Goodbyes are goodbyes, good lucks, and well-meant see you soons, but only in memory. Goodbyes are the fulfillment of a promise, an acceptance of all events since that fateful hello, and another promise.
Goodbye.
I won’t forget you.
YOU ARE READING
the angst album
Non-FictionA collection of the little things I write, some poems, some those scrolling paragraphs I can't ever seem to escape. Here is my heart, and since you are a stranger you cannot hurt me with it. Vote if you like, don't vote if you don't, hell you could...
