Let's have a play with words

Farewells are usually never pleasant, or wanted. We all fear loss, absence despite our instrinsic streak to trudge on, since our fight for survival and resililence for self-perpetuation is engineered in our genes. Except for those anomalies who live by their emotions and fluctuating sense of self-worth, the martyrs, the suicides, the war-worthy and bound.

Farewells have a life of their own. They have evolved, divided, giving new life to a sibling: the good-bye.

We say goodbye, with the poignant sentimentality, tight little smile when we leave those who we actually give a damn about. I was always told to be polite, to be respectful, even to those we dislike. I admire that firm placidity, that sense of consideration, but I hold my reservations still when I form them and I say goodbye when i mean it, 'bye', when it is a cursory politeness to do so, the 'cya' and the 'later', the occasionally 'fuck-off-would-ya!'.

So then, the goodbye, the bye, the farewell which encompasses the goodbye.

What then makes the goodbye, good? Is it not a contradiction, an irony?

We say goodbye all the time, we may not realise it but we do so to our body and cells every single passing moment. Each sunset and sunrise, is a little different, each meeting, kiss, orgasm is just that little bit dissimilar. Our bodies acknowledge all this as our years creep up on us, our skin becomes crepe-like, our hair silvers, eyesight fades, to our organs failing us, after a lifetime of accumulated little goodbyes.

So why not make each goodbye a good one?

Treasure each moment, glimpse, glance, drink in the sounds, sights, tastes, each smile of shared amusement and laughter, every act of kindness.