Learning How to Say Goodbye

“I don’t want things to change.” Standing on the sun-bathed sands of his home, a

young boy grapples with the weight of his destiny appearing before him. Everything

he knows is about to change, the world he knew soon to be a mere memory of times

gone by, and the people he has grown up with are about to become footprints in his mind.

His mother, the single element of piece in an otherwise chaotic & traumatic young life

so far, comforts him with a simple logic. “You can’t stop the change any more than

you can stop the suns from setting”. Shmi Skywalker’s final comforts to her son, as

young Anakin takes the steps into a new life, leaving behind the familiarity of what

has come before.

I’m not good at goodbyes. Whilst I offer the comforting warmth and friendliness of

Shmi as things and people around me prepare to move onto something new, inside the

wavering voice of a young Anakin has a chokehold on my heart. Change is coming,

and even though it is just the natural course of things, it doesn’t make the parting any

easier.

Since finishing university and choosing to remain in the city that has become my home,

so much as continued to change. The way my days are spent, switching lectures and

assignments for job applications and shifts at my jobs. The places I spend my time,

much more the theatres where I work than the libraries I used to study in. But it’s the

people who have shifted the most. For whilst I have elected to stay past the end of

my studies, many people’s destinies lie elsewhere, making a painful ‘goodbye’ a

matter of when, not if.

The beauty of attending a prestigious university with an international reach is the

worldwide community that ends up mixing in this crucible of cultures. People from all

four corners of the globe, from across the seven seas and from the skies of faraway

locations come together to learn, to grow and to take their steps into a larger world

together. Having made friends from frontiers aplenty, I love the way those I love have

connections across the map…until their destinies inevitably step back to the fore.

In the past year, I’ve had more ‘goodbyes’ than I would ever have liked to. Friends

returning home following the end of their programmes, those from across Britain

heading to new cities to begin their careers, and those from overseas collecting their

one-way tickets back to their homeland, and far away from the lives they’ve developed

in the intervening years. I would never begrudge anyone taking their next steps,

becoming the people they’ve always wanted to be and embark on a new adventure,

but parting is always a tough experience.

And several more are appearing on the horizon, but this time slightly differently. For

this time, I am not to be the one left behind, but the one doing the leaving. Within a

matter of weeks, I leave a group which has defined most of my life for the past few

years. A community which has welcomed me so readily, given me a home, a family,

friends, siblings & a purpose for so long is soon to be on a diverging path from my

own. 

Whilst I am not leaving the geographic vicinity of the group that has had such an impact on me, the distance will soon be the furthest I have been from it since I first joined back in 2023.

No one can prepare you to say goodbye. Whether you’re sitting on the train as it

pulls out from the station, or running along the platform as the one you love heads off

towards the sunset, a little piece of you is always left behind, or speeding away from

you as the plane’s wheels retract. For a moment, for a while, there’s a hole in your

heart that seems unfillable. No one teaches you how to say goodbye, because

truthfully, there’s no cure for a section of you heart being separated. Time may help,

but you are a different person at the end of it; you have been changed, for good.

I can’t say I know how to say goodbye, because there’s simply no way to do so for

someone or something you love without it hurting more than you can ever imagine.

But by remembering that the closing of every chapter is time for a new one to begin,

& that at least one of you is about to take the next step towards your destiny, there is

the option to keep smiling, even if it is through tears. Don’t ever resent the change,

or resent those who end up leaving to pursue their dreams, because the hurt is just

as real for them as well, and if they’re truly the ones that you love, they’re about to

have a great new adventure panning out in front of them, and will be sure to bring you

(virtually) along for the ride!

Written by, Sophie Layton (she/her)