I was 24 and I stood in the empty parking lot next to my loaded car. The wind blew my hair into my face as I glanced around the place that I had called home for the past nine months. I had worked to the end of the school year. I had finished. I hadn’t quit. And that was the great accomplishment — finishing.
Earlier in the week, parents had arrived for last-day parties and for graduation. I had closed my bank account and had given my employer my new address so they knew where to mail my last paycheck.
For me, there were no laughter-filled reminiscences, no we-have-to-do-this-one more time events, and no starry-eyed plans to get together again.
I didn’t have any teary goodbye hugs but that’s not unusual for me. I don’t usually cry at the actual moment of goodbye. Usually I think a lot about leaving ahead of time and cry a little in advance and then a few days after I’m gone, I cry a lot. But this time, I never cried about leaving at all.
The last students had already been gone for a day. It was the happiest I’ve ever been to leave anywhere — that day that I climbed into my little blue Toyota Tercel and drove away.
In fact, it was the happiest I’d been in months. I had cried about many other things that year — but not leaving.
There were other things that I learned that year, but this lesson about leaving sticks. I’ve learned that if it’s hard to say goodbye and that if it’s hard to go, then it means the time together was well-spent. That relationships were rich and meaningful. As much as I hate letting go, I’ll take a hard goodbye over I can’t wait to get out of here any day.
#mondaysbymidnight
