I didn’t realize it at first.
Not until I got to college and experienced my first real goodbye- the seniors that I started to grow close to and form a bond with were suddenly leaving. No more Her Campus Monday nights with my seniors, no more of the best Burton trivia. It was hard, but it didn’t feel that devastating. My life kept moving on. I was still involved, if not more so, but still doing the same things that we used to do together. I even moved up and became Big-Little Coordinator for Her Campus, the very club where this piece will forever live. In ways, pieces of them stayed.
But then the goodbyes started to change.
My best friend from home went away to college this year. For my first year at Bonas, he was still close. A quick 40-minute trip brought us back together. Close enough that late-night drives and spontaneous visits made it feel like nothing would change. Sometimes, I would make the trek home to just see him. It was never goodbye.
But now, it somehow is.
I haven’t seen him since Christmas, and I miss him every day. Not in a dramatic and life-altering way, but in a silent but constant way that sits within you.
My childhood best friend is getting married. And while this isn’t a goodbye either, it still feels like one on its own. Our lives are moving forward, down different paths. We don’t see each other like we used to. I mourn the children who ate graham crackers dipped in water without a care in the world. But I still love her as deeply as I did in those small moments, and I know that I will always be there. Some goodbyes don’t mean losing someone; they just mean the change in how they often exist in your life.
My best friend, whom I only knew for a short while, that goodbye still haunts me to this day. One day, he entered my life and was always there. We went to Ellicottville, did coffee trips, and I would never mess up just a simple black coffee. Then one day, he opened up. It may be that not only deepened our friendship, but also my love and care for him. He lived life in the fast lane, and some moments I felt like I was living like him. Then, after my first final of my first semester of my sophomore year, we were hanging out, and then we were packing up his stuff, and then he was driving away.
We hugged, I cried, but something about this goodbye, it was permanent, but it felt permanent to this place. I know he is reading this, so I love you and miss you. Please come home.
And then there is a goodbye I’m not ready for.
This year has been rough, and through it all, one person has been there for me every single day. My best friend. He is graduating in 36 days, and yes, I am counting.
I know we will still talk and I know we’ll still see each other when we can. And if he ends up somewhere warm, I’ll probably visit more than I should. But it won’t be the same.
I’m used to seeing him almost every day. And on the days we didn’t, we still Facetimed. You could say we’re a little codependent, and honestly, I didn’t believe that until recently. But now, with graduation becoming so close, I can admit it.
And I’m going to miss him more than I know how to explain.
I think that’s when it finally hit me: growing up is a series of goodbyes.
Goodbyes to people, to routines. To versions of yourself you didn’t realize that you were becoming attached to.
But for me, these goodbyes aren’t all endings.
Because every person I’ve had to “say goodbye” to still carries a piece of me, and I carry pieces of them. In the things we shared, the habits we picked up from each other, even something as small as how I take my coffee.
Some goodbyes have broken my heart. But the people behind them have also helped put it back together.
We say goodbye all the time, ending a phone call with my mom, leaving a friend’s room to go back to my own. But those are not the ones that stay with you.
It’s the quiet, almost final ones that do.
The ones where nothing is ending, but everything is changing.