Walking Backwards into the Future
I say goodbye a lot. It’s one of my least favorite things to do–always has been. I moved schools a lot when I was a kid and I would avoid the active work of saying goodbye as often as possible–making jokes to diffuse the situation or skipping the last day of school. Even now, I’ll do this “I’m sure I’ll see you again before you go” thing and then dip so I can avoid saying a final goodbye.
Saying goodbye is part of my job. Folks come to the DC Area to receive medical treatment and then leave when they’re better or when they are no longer Active Duty Military. My relationship with my mother too, is peppered with goodbyes. She lives in Bangladesh and comes to visit once or twice a year and I am so unbearably sad when she leaves.
I had planned to write a generalized, vague post about the nature of goodbyes. About how sad they are and how ultimately we can transcend the pain by realizing that we are all connected wherever we go or something. Blah, blah, blah.
And then I read this blogpost by my friend Bryan. It is at once hilarious and heartbreakingly honest and brave (much like Bryan himself). And I realized that what I wanted to write about was not these inevitable goodbyes that I struggle with–though I’m sure I will want to write about them soon–but a goodbye of a different sort that’s been really hard for me this week.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, there’s been some heartbreak in Seema-land. Heartbreak of a brand new sort for me. A goodbye said not because it was inevitable, but because I had to make a choice. I chose what I knew I needed over what I wanted. I had to understand that “there was no more room in me for that kind of hurt,” and take leave. I had to choose myself, ladies and gentlemen. I had to be a grown up. And it sucked. It sucks. I am sad. But this life is, more than anything, about learning yourself. About leaving things you want so badly when you feel yourself slipping into self-doubt, into someone you do not want to be. My brilliant friends offered me lots of love–burgers and pep talks and their ears. And I wavered a lot–wondering if it was just me, if the considerable good was salvageable, if I could have done something differently. But ultimately I have to remind myself (again and again and again) that nothing anyone else does is about me. That just as everyone has reasons for acting as they do, I have to take responsibility for my own heart and protect myself. My dear friend Ashley gave me the title line of this post–the idea that we look closely at what we’ve experienced as we walk into our futures, learn from our pasts, keep an eye on where we’re coming from as we move forward.
What are the feelings you want to have inspired by the people you choose to hold close? What does your life history not allow you to accommodate any longer?
This is not about blame–not blame pointed towards you or anyone else. It’s about accepting how your experiences have shaped you and
identifying what YOU need, which may vary from the ‘norm’–because your life experience doesn’t fit a template. We have to choose to surround ourselves with what makes us the best, most secure version of ourselves. We have to feel valued.
Fortunately there are poems about everything. Every feeling is ancient.
