Goodbyes.

Goodbyes are something that a lot of people hate, some people can't stand them so they never do them. Some people find goodbyes romantic and dream of that special day where they'll wave off their loved one on a steam train, waving a polka dot hankie and shouting 'I love you' after them. Goodbyes are a funny thing. You're saying goodbye to someone as if it'll be forever when most of the time you know it wont be, it may even be for a few hours or a day. Some people have to say goodbye forever and that's when goodbyes are heart wrenching. To know your last moments with someone have passed forever and you'll never get to redo them, have a second chance. 

In the films and in tv shows they often get to have a big romantic goodbye, or they end up back together or they get to share their last living moments with the people they love. In real life it's not like that. It's like a break up from a relationship that you don't see coming; you never get to go back to their room and just look. Feel their pillow, sit on their bed, feel the floor beneath you. You don't get to go back and fall asleep in that room and open your eyes and see the way the light is coming through the crack in the curtains, bouncing off the mirror and lighting up the room. You don't get to do that. You don't get to go to their family and say goodbye, thanks for having me in your lives for a bit. Goodbyes are sad most of the time.

Goodbyes can be sad but well planned though. Maybe someone is dying and you are with them in their last moments. You get to kiss their skin, brush their cheek, see them smile one last time, say I love you. You get to do that and goodbyes like that are, although extremely painful, a gift. You get a step closer to closure, you get to utter anything you need to before you chance is up. Goodbyes like this are often the ones you see in films and are rare, but rare like winning the lottery the first time you ever play, not rare like dying from swallowing chewing gum once when you were eight. Greater of two goodbyes.

I like to think that I'm good with goodbyes, for others anyway. I rarely cry when in the presence of the person I'm leaving, but once they've left and I know I wont see them again for a long time, then that's when you question the good in goodbye. Goodbye, meaning safe home, good journey, see you soon, good day. But it feels like 'good to see you go'. Take every goodbye as a chance to tell someone you love them, or like their jacket, or that they look lovely. Leave goodbye's knowing you've put the good in it.

Lauren x