Today I said goodbye to a friend, who’s moving on to new, great things. He’s at the beginning of something, and that energy is contagious, even the nerves and stress that go with it. And I know that I need to move forward as well, start a new phase. We can’t sit here collecting dust, not when we’re 24 and we’ll have plenty of time to sit and think about what it’s all meant later.
I don’t want to miss him, maybe I should just say I’m glad to still like him, after everything we’ve been through together. Because this is the kind of goodbye that still leaves things undefined for the future; the closing of a book, a pause, that makes reopening it again someday possible. It’s one of those moments where you just feel the effect of time, it all its dimensions. Past, present, future, and this is a day that will be marked on that forever.
How about I promise you this (although maybe you don’t mind either way, so it’s really a promise to myself): the next time you see me I’ll be kinder, I’ll be prettier, I’ll happier, more stable, so I can be the person I want to be rather than this mess of mixed signals. I’ll be better to you, but I won’t require anything in return, because I’ll be better able to take care of myself too. And I hate to say “next time,” to put things off ‘til later, because you often don’t get that second chance. So all I can say is, I hope it won’t be too long.
