There are so many ways to say goodbye, and reasons for saying it. There is the goodbye when your leaving is temporary and return is already arranged, the goodbye when your presence will be gone for some time, the goodbye to situations, the goodbye to what has passed and what is done... So many reasons, so many ways to use a word and so many ways to say it...
Annyeonghi Kyeseyo(if the person you're talking to isn't leaving) - Korean
Doviđenja - Croatian (litteraly means "Until we see again")
Namaste (same as hello) - Hindi
Sayonara / さよなら (if you will not see them for a long time) - Japanese
Tschau - German
Adios - Spanish
One common thread is that so many of the goodbye's across the languages have no sense of permanence. That the goodbye is forever. Adios/a demain/Bis Spater- til tomorrow! Hardly the goodbye of "never will I see you or this place again". Personally, hate goodbyes. Unless it is death I don't really believe that it IS forever. Even death, we are saying goodbye to what we have now to welcome a new stage in... one of holding that person deeper in us though not to have them on the physical plain.
I admit to avoiding goodbyes. Hate them. Even with bad situations, I try to take what I can from it -- the lessons if you will-- and close it. But is it ever goodbye as in permanent? Making it go away? NO! You have been touched and altered. So this thought on goodbye has lead me to the thinking on when is it time to say goodbye and let go to situations, jobs and people? To let go of what we have in the "now" and give it the freedom to settle and perhaps morph as the universe will have it, into something else? Be it as it will? I truly do not know. I wish I did sometimes! It is that conflict of head and heart. The wanting to hang on with your heart when your head says let go. Or holding on to the job (good example for me) because the sensible brain says it is smart.... when you heart has already jumped forward and moved on!
The quote "It takes great courage to grow up and become who you are" by ee cummings speaks to this. Being wise enough to listen more clearly to our hearts and our heads and balance them. To recognize that all the answers we have lie within us, and sometimes we must say goodbye to the now or the comfortable to move forward and be honest with who we are. Damn, I admit to this being hard! But, I feel closer to honesty and who I really am than ever before. I am better at recognizing when my head is being silly and trying to be safe in the moment, not who I really am (holding on to the security of that job!). Seems that listening to our heart is often what we do least of. We don't listen to it and are not honest to its need to say goodbye to certain things and step forward. We overthink, over-worry, place others expectations and needs ahead.
Opening ourselves to goodbye means opening ourselves to turning corners, taking paths unknown, and allowing the power of 'what will be' into our life. Scares the crap out of me. How about you? A demain... til tomorrow my friend.
