About Goodbyes and Therapy

I wrote this blog post on the 26th of December last year (2014), but I never really got around to posting it. I don't really know why. I read back on it just now and realized that it explains so well what I felt back then, despite the fact that I was so unsure about it at the time. So, a post written more than a month and a half ago, from the heart of a TCK, to yours. Enjoy.

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It's the last day of school. 

The assembly [chapel] area of my school is crowded with the entire population of the school, milling around, saying goodbyes.

In other countries, the last day of school may look a lot different. I wouldn't know. But what I do know is that it definitely doesn't look like this.

At my school, the last day of school is hardly one where kids shout for joy and squeal at the thought of the approaching summer. Kids don't run out the school gates the moment the school principal announces, "It is officially the end of the school year. Have a great summer!" They all stay behind to do one thing: say goodbye.

It's always been normal for me. The end of the school year is red eyes and tissues. The feeling of loss, helplessness. I remember each of my end-of-school-year days. How different they all were, and yet, how strangely similar they are to each other. Each of them end in tears.

For those of you out there, this may not really make much sense. And I really don't expect it to. But what I'm saying is that my life is full of making new friends, but it's also full of saying goodbye to them again. And making new friends again. My life is a never-ending cycle of hellos and goodbyes. And sometimes that hurts.

And I think, for me, life as a TCK has slowly made me more numb to these goodbyes.

I'm the kind of TCK that doesn't have many problems making friends. It doesn't take very much for me to open up to you and feel close and content and safe with you. But then when the goodbyes come along, I find myself not feeling very much.

It's not that I didn't value the friendship I had. It's just that my feelings aren't really accepting the fact that I have to say goodbye again. So they just don't accept it. They don't let me realize it was a goodbye until later. When everyone is gone, and I'm all alone, I realize what just happened. I just said goodbye to a really good friend that I may never see again. And that's when the floodgates open and I start bawling.

My sister graduating kinda put things more into perspective.

Especially now, as she's preparing to take flight as a real adult, making her own decisions and embarking on a scary and exciting new journey into the great big world, and I have to say goodbye to her. And it's hard.

But last night, as my family was singing Christmas carols and opening presents and praying together, the tears came. And my sister hasn't even gone yet. But it felt good to cry. It was the kind of cry that was all sadness but all happiness at once. It was the kind of cry that sort of helped me to make more sense of what I was feeling, and letting it out in a rational way.

I sort of realized around that point that it's actually really important for me to cry when I say goodbye. It's my way of clinging to the last I have of the person, and then somehow, in the midst of the sobbing and shoulder-shaking and face-reddening, I let go.

It's so important for us TCKs to have a way to let go. There's so much emotion in our lives. And there's got to be a way for us to let it out. Or at least, acknowledge it in a way that isn't anger and bitterness. Crying is my psychiatrist. And I know that it won't always work. But for me, there's a comfort in being able to just cry to a while, maybe be held by a friend that hasn't left me yet, or a family member, and then taking a deep breath and moving on.