There is Never a Good Time For a Goodbye

Remember when you were little and your parents would let you have a play date? It felt like that time would never end. When you were playing, it felt like it would stay that way forever and ever. Then mom comes to pick you up and you pretend to be asleep or hide so that way you could stay just a little bit longer and then maybe you could put off goodbye just a little bit longer. Despite your best attempts, though, goodbye was inevitable.

Growing up, you are bound to have many goodbyes. Friends that move away or move on, parents that go out of town, cousins that go back home after Christmas, sports when it's time to hang up the uniform, grandparents that go home to Jesus, and pets that we never wanted to die. There are many small goodbyes that we just get used to, and a few big goodbyes where time stops as if it were trying to give you a minute to heal before it continues on with life. Throughout all of these goodbyes, though, there is one constant. We are never ready.

They come quickly, forcefully, and extremely inconvenient. The simple ones are a simple groan while the big ones are a painful, aching sob. Recently, I have had many hard goodbyes and some of my hardest goodbyes coming within the next few months. My mom lives about an hour away so every goodbye is gut-wrenching and followed by a few tears late at night. I am finally hanging up my basketball shoes at the end of this next month for good and even though I know it's time, it still feels like a goodbye that would never truly come. In the next few months, I am going to have to say goodbye to my family and friends as I move 12 hours away for college. It is the right decision and I am genuinely so excited for this new chapter of my life, but I didn't realize how painful it would be to close my current chapter. I have to say goodbye to my childhood home this summer because it is getting put on the market. My house is one of the only places in the world that felt safe from heartbreak, tragedy, and divorce. Nothing was ever enough to break the home-y, comforting feeling that I knew as a kid. It was the center of operations of my life in even the worst times. My cat that I have had for as long as I can remember has cancer and doesn't have a lot of time. He got me through some tough days. That cat is so loved.

The thing about goodbye is that it is almost never "good". How ironic that the word "good" is in a word that hurts a lot of people? It comes when we least expect it.

Keep moving forward. You can't stop goodbyes, but you can say more hellos. You can welcome better, happier times and show that pain and anger the door. It is going to be hard, but goodbyes mean that something so much better is coming. You have to believe that the next hello will be so much more than your

last goodbye. I guess the point of this was to say I know it is incredibly hard to leave where we are coming from, but you can trust where you are going. The sun will still rise tomorrow, and the word will keep turning. Just know that tomorrow is coming, and with it, endless opportunity.