I know that I've only just begun to say my goodbyes to Boston College and all the people I love there (I'm dreading the emotional chaos that's waiting for me in May) but there have been a couple of major farewells already.
One of my roommates graduated a semester early, meaning that she moved out of our apartment at the end of this past semester. I know that our goodbye isn't permanent, and that we'll keep in touch, and that she might even be back in Boston next semester, but she'll be absent anyway. We won't cook dinner together any more, and we won't have sleepy chats while lying in bed, and we'll no longer know the rhythms of each others' days. There's little chance that she'll ever read this, but I'll take this opportunity to tell the rest of you how much I love her, and how much I'll miss her. She is an absolutely brilliant young woman, in every sense of the word, and I couldn't imagine my time at BC without her.
The other big goodbye I said this semester was a little more complicated. It wasn't necessarily inevitable, it wasn't a consequence of circumstances, and it was more bitter than sweet. I had a friendship end for reasons that I can't quite explain, and unlike the goodbye I said to my roommate, this one does feel fairly permanent. The rational part of me is glad that it happened, because I know that our friendship had become unhealthy, but another part of me, where my raw emotion lies, is still very unsettled, even almost four months later. It's hard for me to accept that love and kindness can just fall apart, and that a once-close friend can seem like a stranger, but I'm trying to. If I'm being honest with myself, I know that I will probably never have another meaningful conversation with this person again, and the pain of that realization is bewildering, but I can't think of any way to change it, as much as I try. Recently, I've realized that I've kept this person in a place of urgent concern within my thoughts, as if that will preserve some thread of friendship between us, but the time to definitively let go is coming, and it will hurt.
Oh, the changing seasons.
One of my roommates graduated a semester early, meaning that she moved out of our apartment at the end of this past semester. I know that our goodbye isn't permanent, and that we'll keep in touch, and that she might even be back in Boston next semester, but she'll be absent anyway. We won't cook dinner together any more, and we won't have sleepy chats while lying in bed, and we'll no longer know the rhythms of each others' days. There's little chance that she'll ever read this, but I'll take this opportunity to tell the rest of you how much I love her, and how much I'll miss her. She is an absolutely brilliant young woman, in every sense of the word, and I couldn't imagine my time at BC without her.
The other big goodbye I said this semester was a little more complicated. It wasn't necessarily inevitable, it wasn't a consequence of circumstances, and it was more bitter than sweet. I had a friendship end for reasons that I can't quite explain, and unlike the goodbye I said to my roommate, this one does feel fairly permanent. The rational part of me is glad that it happened, because I know that our friendship had become unhealthy, but another part of me, where my raw emotion lies, is still very unsettled, even almost four months later. It's hard for me to accept that love and kindness can just fall apart, and that a once-close friend can seem like a stranger, but I'm trying to. If I'm being honest with myself, I know that I will probably never have another meaningful conversation with this person again, and the pain of that realization is bewildering, but I can't think of any way to change it, as much as I try. Recently, I've realized that I've kept this person in a place of urgent concern within my thoughts, as if that will preserve some thread of friendship between us, but the time to definitively let go is coming, and it will hurt.
Oh, the changing seasons.
1 comments :
This affected me in more ways than I expected it to. I wish I was as eloquent, open, and thoughtful as you are.
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