Au Revoir

by theboneyqueenofnowhere

There are several people who I genuinely love in this world. Each one has a different story to how I said goodbye.

Amy: She had been sick on my last day and over the weekend so I hadn’t been able to say goodbye properly. But on the car ride to the bus station I saw her walking to school and it was really sad because I knew she was only going to say goodbye. Later though, I’m glad to say we talked on the phone just before I got on the bus.

Remy: Remy was intense. Its strange that it was so sadenning to leave her, I don’t know how our friendship flourished like it did – but sometimes you just meet a person with whom you get along with so well. It was in the corridor at school when I said goodbye and she burst into tears. I just wanted to hold her for eternity. It was even sadder to say goodbye to her as well because it wasn’t like I would be going to school with her next year. She’s a year younger than me, so we’ll have zero connections next and I think we both knew that our friendship would never be quite the same again.

Joey: When my brother said goodbye at the bus station he offered a hug, which was a really rare thing for him to do. We have had many arguments in our lives, but I think it’s fair to say we actually get along really well. It was sad to say goodbye to Joey because when I get back he’s going to University and perhaps it was the last time we would live together as the children of the family.

Barry: My dad and I definitely don’t see eye to eye on many things – though he thinks he can see everyones perspective perfectly. We had had a massive argument the night before, which almost made things awkward – but mostly sad. I know he means well and I appreciate his good nature but leaving him was probably for the best because, if either of us want our relationship to improve, we need to have a long break from each other.

Izzy: Saying goodbye to my bestfriend Izzy was heartwrenching. None of the other goodbyes were as disturbingly vivid as this one. It wasn’t that she had burst into an uncontrolable fit of tears like Remy, just that you could tell by every word she said that she was genuinely incredibly sad to see me go. I knew I was breaking her heart in a way – at the peak of our friendship, I was going to leave. I didn’t know what to say to make it better – I was almost as hearbroken as she was and so when I got on the bus and saw her turn to go – the full weight of my commitment hit me, but only for a moment. Then I swallowed hard and endured each second of the increasingly more anxiety-ridden bus ride.

After we got to Sydney, we stayed the night in my cousins apartment. That is, my mum, David (my boyfriend), Nikki (my best friend) and I. We ate pizza for dinner by the harbour bridge and after I stayed up late with David and Nikki. That night, as promised, I also broke up with David – but it wasn’t really like we were broken up. Though that was definitely when it hit him. The next day we hung out in the CBD. Probably the most calming experience of my life was going into The Botanical Gardens and falling asleep on Davids lap as both he and Nikki slept too. It was like, just for a half hour, I stopped trying to catch each moment in my iron fist – I just let the time flow through me, as though it were an endless rain. But that turned out not to be true. An hour later we were at the airport. And with mounting fear and anxiety, more than ever before, we were suddenly walking to the gate where I would have to say goodbye, not only to my mum and my friends, but the only life I have ever known and the country which I genuinely love.

Mum: She was proud of me and I could tell. I don’t think she minded too much about being so far from me for so long – she is too rational to be overwhelmed. I think she had finally come to the realisation that she had succeeded as a mother and maybe even she was able to drop a certain fear of failure that ever parent must have. I think in those final moments, she had found a new respect for me and perhaps I became in her eyes more of an equal and less of a child.

Nikki: Nikki will always joke around till the very end of everything she ever does. She was cracking jokes and having a good time, but I think it had sunk in that this was finally it.

David: For David, I think it was finally too much and he gave up on trying to see it all as “for the best”. He didn’t want me to go and I could tell that if their was even the slightest hope of one, he would be searching for a loophole so I could stay. We kissed and he seemed almost panicked when it was over – could it really be the last? For us, it was a confusing and scary goodbye. Neither of us knew if we would want to get back together when I return. Maybe one will like the idea but not the other. That’s what David thought would happen, and he thought it was going to be him left broken hearted. For him this was like the beginning of breaking up, but taking five months.

After I said goodbye, the fear and overall anxiety had peaked – it was almost too much. About to have a mental breakdown of some sort, I turned around, emptied my mind of everything from the life that was mine no longer in one sweeping breath, and stepped into the savage, inescapable, desolate realm of exchange for once and for all.