On Goodbyes
We don’t have a word for “goodbye” in the Tamil language. What we usually say when leaving is “வரேன்”, which means “I’ll come.” It’s a shorter and more commonly used term for the proper one, “போயிட்டு வரேன்”, which means “I’ll go, then I’ll come back.” Using words to indicate that we are leaving or going often have more permanent and negative connotations; they are more powerful as they are often synonymous with death – the death of the relationship, or in more extreme circumstances, the person saying the goodbye or the person receiving the goodbye is passing on. Which is why under certain situations, it’s considered utterly disrespectful and inauspicious to say “goodbye”. You always tell someone you will be back. Even if you don’t really like them.
This phrase of “போயிட்டு வரேன்”, or “I’ll go, then I’ll come back” is one I have pondered on plenty. Even as a kid, it was a bittersweet phrase for me as it was one I would often say. Specifically, and routinely, in the context of when leaving my grandfather’s house in India and/or to my relatives at the airport before boarding the flight back to Singapore. “I’ll go, then I’ll come back” was a promise. A painful one at that, because I didn’t want to go back to a country I didn’t feel particularly welcome or cherished the way I did in the comfort of my relatives. An innocent one too, not knowing that when I said I would be back, the person I was saying it to might not necessarily be there when I do come back.
Being in Singapore and speaking and studying in English, I quickly learned that “goodbye” was often presented with the cliché “there’s good in goodbye”. “Bye” is what everyone goes for, it’s treated the same way as “see you soon!” But the more formal “goodbye” is often used to indicate that something better is coming or for the more positive side of things. Like when you say goodbye, you’re saying hello to something else. When you hug someone goodbye, you will soon hug someone hello. When you find the strength to say goodbye, your tears of pain will soon be tears of joy. The list of pushing “goodbye” as something positive is endless. As a child stuck on “I’ll go, then I’ll come back”, I found them all as ridiculously empty platitudes. How could my tears of pain possibly morph into tears of joy? In what dimension?! My tears of pain stayed as tears of pain. For years at times. Tears that watered the seeds of my grief, letting a quiet anguish grow in me, thriving, adapting and blending with other moments of heartbreak until I had my own dark forest of woe. A forest that briefly sees the light at the most ridiculous and unexpected of moments and things like a mango yoghurt smoothie. Because you let your guard down you no longer text “heyyy” to the person you once knew who loves mango yoghurt smoothies.
We live in a time where there are two forms of goodbyes now. The ones where we verbalise, or are forced to verbalise our goodbyes for closure. Like to a loved one who is dying, or interestingly, to a clothing item after we have thanked it for bringing joy into our lives. And then there are the ones where we just don’t, hoping time will do that for us instead or for the recipients of our unspoken goodbye to somehow just… disappear from our lives. It is so difficult and unusual for us to say, “Hi, this relationship is not benefitting you, it’s not benefiting me, if anything it’s only hurting both of us so I think it’s best if we say goodbye and move on.” Instead, we just drag the relationship out, like guests who overstayed their welcome in our house. Hoping they will pull the plug. Growing up in tandem with technology meant the way people stopped saying goodbyes evolved too – no more phone calls, no more emails, no more texts, no more WhatsApp texts, unfriending someone on Facebook, unfollowing each other on Instagram. The infamous notion of “ghosting”.
But regardless of the way we say goodbye, I find I’m never quite able to move on. I think of the relatives I was lucky enough to be able to say goodbye to and the relatives I wasn’t. The pain is no less. The weight of their memory, no different. The loss and their absence, still a recurring pang. I’ll be living my life when it hits me that they would never see me get married, never bless me again, or see the life I’ve made of myself. I think of the friendships I said goodbye to and the friends I ghosted. I still have a tug at my heart every time I flip a menu and see their favourite food, walk past a particular place, or in the quietest of nights, randomly recall their phone number. I think of all the experiences I was able to say goodbye to, forced myself to say goodbye to, or watched in shock as they were taken away from me, with my goodbye having been decided as an unnecessity for me. The feeling of lack, that momentary pining, is always no different. Just because a sentient life form changes into a voice in your head, a memory, doesn’t mean they were never there. And so they are never truly gone. They live on in the way their absence motivated you to find solace in another, in the way you do your eyeliner, in the photos you couldn’t bring yourself to delete, at your favourite places to eat, in what you thought was a random quirk only to discover it’s a hereditary trait.
I think with the “goodbyes” and “I’ll go, then I’ll come back” I’ve said over the years, a goodbye is just that – a goodbye. You take it as it is, you don’t assume there’s something good to it, you don’t necessarily hope something good will come out of it. Sometimes you say goodbye and you find a new beginning, a new chapter. It gives you renewed hope and reaffirms your love for life. But sometimes you say goodbye and nothing ever replaces it. You don’t recover from it and you don’t quite forget it. Completely. Because at the end of the day, you’re a part of all that you’ve met. You can’t separate yourself from well, yourself. You’re always going to see them in the hot fudge sundae because they always used to get that when they were with you. In the necklace passed from generation to generation. In the words you write, in the reflection of the mirror, in the dimple in your right cheek. You can’t say goodbye to something that still lives on in memories and the ghost of your reflection. And so it turns out, goodbye is just a temporary coping measure. It’s a way to say thank you and close the door on the excessive pain for now. But the memories you have, the love you feel, the grief in their absence, never goes away. So you go live your “regular” life for now. Then one day, you will come back to revisit those memories and reminisce.
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