Goodbye - 4/29/11
What is the most powerful single word you can think of? For me, it's goodbye. It holds so much meaning, sadness, and finality. No other word has such hurtful connotations; it exemplifies loss in a way no other word can. It's not just a statement of leaving. . it is more like closure made implicit. When you say goodbye, and mean it fully, it's not merely a farewell or "until we meet again". Rather, it is a deliberate acknowledgement of the end of something. Be it a love, a home, a friend, or a job.....saying a definite goodbye holds more weight and gravitas than we realize.
But this realization both saddens and frustrates me, because while there is a great deal of power in goodbye, I also don't believe that it is ever necessary to say. We only say heartfelt goodbyes to those we care about, and we only really mean it as an end when we feel we must say goodbye in order to move on with our lives. We say goodbye to those we love the most because maybe we need the closure to facilitate our growth and healing. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. We say goodbye to those that are dying or dead, because we feel we will no longer be in their presence again. We say goodbye to the places we love, houses we grew up in, Stones that beckoned us home....because they too have left us.....have left me. And so goodbye is a form of catharsis, it is a declaration to the Universe that although the people and moments in my life that mean the most to me are gone, I'm still here.
But again, is a goodbye...even as a release...ever necessary? I really don't think so. Nothing is ever lost, nothing meaningful will ever leave your spirit or your heart. Furthermore, you can and will be reunited with everything and everyone that ever mattered to you one beautiful day.
To quote Conversations with God:
"When fear is taken from you, all else can be taken from you and you will not be angry.
You know inwardly, intuitively, that everything you’ve created can be created again, or—more importantly—that it doesn’t matter.
When you find Inner Peace, neither the presence nor the absence of any person, place or thing, condition, circumstance, or situation can be the Creator of your state of mind or the cause of your experience of being."
I found Inner Peace once. Unfortunately, I think I told it....goodbye.
