Too Beautiful Not To Re-post: Beautiful Goodbyes
A re-post from Danielle Dowling
You crave it.
And it craves you.
The romance.
The career.
The chance.
So you start hoping, plotting, aspiring + reaching.
You make a well thought-out plan to get it.
There is strategy, accountability, “to-do,” lists + monthly objectives.
You want it and you want it bad.
And one day? You get it.
It’s a love affair of shiny goodness.
Elation + met expectations.
It doesn’t get any better than this!
Until.
Fading, fleeting, crumbling, deteriorating, “IT” begins to die.
You resist + repress until goodbye becomes painfully, obviously imminent.
“Damn it,” you tell yourself, “I hate goodbyes.”
“They never go well. I’m no good at this.”
Goodbyes are awkward at best + dismantling at worst.
With your focus on the impending loss, you visualize the words
“the end” flashing in neon across your heart.
You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, you rationalize.
You hate to put anyone through pain. It crushes you to see THAT look on anyone’s face.
So you delay, ignore, fail to return calls, miss meetings,
forget to make the payment.
All the while, you’re (inadvertently) twisting the blunt
knife avoidance to deadly depths.
There’s a better way, brilliant one.
Ditch the drama.
Goodbyes don’t need to be riddled with defensiveness, apathy,
or disrespect.
You have a choice.
What if you aspired, instead, to create only ‘beautiful goodbyes’?
Regardless of how ‘they’ may act or how unnerving
the circumstance may be.
What if you could wrap each ‘ending’ up into a
cocoon of pleasant closure?
You can.
Respect your life more + demand an answer to the question
–what worked?
How did I grow as result of this?
What was beautiful about this?
– then— tell them.
OR if this goodbye is just between you + the past….bow your head
+ whisper to your heart.
Muster the bravery to very lovingly, calmly say:
I loved you while I could. As best as I could. With all I could.
Thank you for you. When I had you.
Good luck.
Adieu.
A goodbye that honors the pain of parting + the joy of the experience
is a real gift to mankind. It echoes a respect for humanity’s light + dark sides.
Thank you, goodbye.
Helllllloooo, here and now!