When I was nearing the end of my group therapy dealing with my depression, during my sophomore year, one of my counselors made a point that still poignantly impacts me today. He said that, as a culture, we have a difficult time saying good-bye. He didn't mean that it was emotionally difficult, because that ought to be self-evident. What he meant, though, was that we don't actually do it. Of course, we say it. But there's always the idea that somehow, someway we'll see each other again. It's not like we're dying, after all, we're just parting for awhile. There will be reunions, lunch dates, casual meetings, facebook updates. Good-byes, for us, don't have to be forever.
Ironically enough, I never got to say good-bye to that counselor. It was unfortunate, for me, because he had been one of a great many people who had a significant role in helping me get over my depression (for the most part), after three years. I forgot to attend his final meeting, something I'll always regret, but I took it as a sign that I no longer needed therapy like I once did. It was good, in that respect, but I still wish I had told him thanks. He was, after all, one of the many, many people who have made a significant impact upon me over the course of the last four years.
That anecdote notwithstanding, I think he had a good point. We generally don't say good-bye. Instead, our friends and acquaintances tend to fade away. We gradually lose touch, bit by bit, until you think someday, months or years later, “I wonder whatever happened to …?” Maybe you even see the person again, say you'll “do lunch” or something like it, and, even if you do, it's all different. Your friend is gone, replaced by a different person with a different life who knows of you but doesn't really know you.
This means that many of the people we most cherish in our life leave us without ever really knowing how much they mean to us. The joy they've brought us, the impact their care and companionship has had for us, and the almost certain hole their absence will create once they're gone are never really acknowledged. It seems somewhat maudlin, sure, but sometimes I think I'd rather risk letting people know too much that never letting them know at all.
Of course, I say that. And yet I doubt I will actually do it myself. For better or worse, our culture just isn't accustomed to such displays of affection. It makes people uncomfortable and awkward, not to mention nostalgic and sad at a time meant to be celebratory and happy. Perhaps it’s for the best, I really don’t know.
Even if I don’t do it individually, though, I’d still like to thank and say farewell collectively. I’ve grown a great deal over the past four years. I guess it’d be pretty hard not to. But I know I didn’t do it alone, and, in many different ways, there have been scores of people who have led me to be the person I am today.
Of course I can't help but feel saddened that my college experience is just about over. There's so much I never did, so much I'll never do, so many people I'll never meet, never love, never know. There are so many things I could have been. In many ways, I leave as I came: imperfect and confused (and, naturally, pants-less).
But I've improved, too. I’ve matured in intellectually and emotionally, in ability and interest. I never got to know many people to the extent I would have liked, but I've certainly known a few. I've loved fewer, but they were worth it (for different reasons). And even those more casual acquaintances have made my life so much richer for their presences. I'll always miss standing in presidential court, at midday, seeing so many different people with disparate paths and disparate purposes all wave to me as they pass. Whatever the level of intimacy, they all helped change the anonymous banality of a large university into something like a real community.
So, to all of you whom I've known and loved and played so many days away, thank you. I’m sure I’ll see plenty of you again, but even so, best wishes wherever the future takes you (cardboard box or otherwise).
To the ones I never knew, I hope you have your own community to thank.
To everyone, I don’t know if this is the end, but, just in case, I really do mean thank you.
But, to my undergraduate studies, I have no qualms when I finally, finally get to say
Good-bye.
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