I stand, face tilted to the floor with my mouth half open and my unfocused eyes drifting like a bobber with no fishing line. My mind is blank yet filled with thoughts—too many to explore, so I don't.
If someone asks how I feel, I know I won't know how to respond. Silence is a friend in such a situation. Leave enough space between the question and your answer, and it becomes too awkward for anyone to care about your response anymore.
A decision awaits, but how to proceed without making more of a mess?
I call my mother.
The phone clicks. "Hello?" she says through the landline's crackly connection.
"I have good news," I start, trying to be optimistic.
"Yeah?" she responds excitedly. She is currently finalizing the details of divorce with my father, so she is eager to cling to any sort of happy news.
"I got an internship," I say, and I hear her woot into the speaker.
There is a pause.
"Where is it at?" she asks.
"Arizona," I say. "It's a mining company. But—" I pause. The caveat is silly and I don't want to burden her with my petty concerns, but the idea of holding them alone makes my eyes swell horribly with tears. I take a breath. "The thing is, it's close to where..." I struggle to avoid saying his name, "...he lives," I finish pathetically.
I can hear the wince in my mother's voice when she asks, "How do you feel about it?"
I don't answer, and she waits. I blink and rub my neck. A noncommittal sound escapes my mouth, utterly unintelligible but somehow cohesive enough for my mother to respond.
"Do you think you'll see him?" she asks softly through the phone line.
The sinking feeling in my chest does an uncomfortable flip. "Yes," I respond grimly. "It's his same company and in the same tiny mining town."
My mouth feels dry, and I try to keep my voice from shaking.
I spent hours applying to dozens of places, and when I finally get an offer, it is doomed to be in the one place that makes me question myself.
Our goodbye had been final, so how am I supposed to say hello again? And if I spend the summer in his town, working for the same company, how can I not say hello again?
The internship is perfect, though. Metallurgical engineering. It sounds so fancy and exciting—proof that all my hard work is paying off. Yet I'm too emotionally queasy to appreciate it.
"How long until the acceptance deadline?" my mother asks.
"Thursday," I respond. Two days from now.
My mind flashes through a series of thoughts, bouncing from excitement to terror and rage. This might be the only internship opportunity I get before needing to apply to a permanent job after I graduate, but I am so tired of being thrown back into his circles. I have hoped and planned and then despaired and departed too many times.
I tell my mother this, and she pauses thoughtfully.
She tells me how proud of me she is. She assures me I will have other opportunities but that whatever I choose will be okay. As she speaks, I close my eyes and think.
I think of all the kinds of goodbyes I've said in my lifetime—ones that are flashy and meaningless, bitter and final, long and taxing. I think of the tender goodbyes I give my siblings when my rare visits home are at a close and I have to fly thousands of miles back to school. I think of the goodbyes I give my friends every day, the goodbyes that turn into see-you-laters. I think of how much easier it has gotten to say goodbye as I've gotten older. I remember weeping as a child every time my uncle came and left because I knew I wouldn't see him for at least another year. I think of all the goodbyes in my life, the hard and the hurtful ones and the ones I truly hoped would be the last. No see-you-laters. Just goodbye. Goodbye forever.
Billy Joel lyrics from the song "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" float in my mind. I think of how it depicts goodbyes to be almost comical in their frequency.
"So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last, some will just be now and then.
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."
I am tired of goodbyes but even more tired of empty hellos—the kind you don't fully commit to because you aren't sure you even want to see the person in the first place. You just kind of half-smile in passing or say in a way too cheery voice, "Hey! How are you?"
Or maybe you just stand there, frozen in place and unable to think of anything to say at all. Your mind scrambles because you know you look stupid and you really don't want to. You want them to think you are poised and brilliant and beautiful, but what does it matter? You'll never see them again. And if you do, what they think is irrelevant because they are no longer a part of you. It'll be just another hello, just another temporary face in and out of your life like a wave or a sewing bobbin through fabric or the cars vrooming by the busy road facing your bedroom window at night.
There is rarely anything more terrifying than seeing someone when you least want or expect to. But we do. We wrap our fears in bubble wrap and tie them in beautiful goodbye-bows, watching solemnly as they drift away like dandelion fluff.
Goodbyes and hellos can be as equally unwelcome as they are inevitable, but avoiding them entirely is out of the question. There would be chaos without goodbyes and loneliness without hellos. They come in series, sometimes undulating like a gentle breeze or bouncing like roadkill under a heavy vehicle. They form brilliant contrasts, painting life with starkness and variety—like a sore throat after months of healthiness or warmth after a winter breeze. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, and I'm afraid it's time for hello again.