It’s hard to understand why there has to be goodbyes. Goodbyes are never easy and I keep finding myself in situations where I have to let people or things or relationships go, for no fault of theirs or mine and I wonder why it has to be this way. Why we’re allowed to grow so attached. Why we get used to people and their smells, the sound of their voice, the color of their sweaters and the texture of their hair. We come to expect their emails and calls; they often brighten our days, like a little gift that was given just to help us through a difficult moment. We acclimate to places and times only to have them taken away, uprooted, extricated from ours lives leaving an empty path of emotional wreckage behind. Leaving us searching for new things and other people and different places to fill up the time, space, and void.

Sometimes what’s worse than a purposeful goodbye is when people who were once in our lives just drift away without explanation or closure, consideration, or care.

Maybe we were once great friends now traveling down different paths that never seem to cross much anymore. But we still miss and love and wish good tidings with Christmas cards once a year and we think and want and reminisce in the stillness of our minds. Maybe we reach out and make a call but it isn’t returned and we have to remember that it was another time. Maybe they’ve moved on and we’re left with sadness mixed with special memories. I miss rock concerts and movie nights, holidays, racetracks, crying on each other’s shoulders through illness and divorce. I miss my friends and I assume they miss me too. I miss emails and IM’s, I miss cubicle mates and old classroom chums. I miss old coworkers from my last seven jobs. I hear certain songs on the radio and I still think of them.

Sometimes we have to sever ties for reasons that are beyond our control. Maybe it’s a business relationship that isn’t working and hard decisions have to be made.

Maybe the people we have to say goodbye to, were never close. Maybe we had our differences and didn’t always see eye to eye. But we saw each other and talked everyday and we got attached the way you would to a testy step sibling whose quirks you grew to find endearing, whose faults you learned to forgive, whose jokes were easy to laugh at because of the unique way in which they were told. The worst goodbyes are those you never saw coming and didn’t have a chance to say all the things you always wanted them to know. Or maybe just a simple handshake and acknowledgement would have done. A kind word of wisdom that someone once said to you and it stuck and made a difference in your life during difficult times. Maybe that’s all you could offer but it would have been something, before goodbye.

Sometimes it’s personal and others end it without consulting us and we’re left to turmoil over the understanding of why or what we could have done different or better to make them want to stay.

Maybe we were lovers who shared something exhilarating, passionate moments when we needed them most. Maybe we loved them in ways they didn’t return. Maybe we wanted them to be more or give more or feel more but they couldn’t. Maybe the idea we had of their purpose in our life didn’t quite live up to the way we imagined it or felt it would be so we grew disappointed and irritable, and then one day it becomes clear that it was a point in time that can’t be recreated so you have to let it go. You have to let it go along with the knowledge that maybe if it was a different place or a different time, their purpose and their reason for gracing our life may have been greater. Maybe it would have been love or friendship. Or maybe both, had it been a different goodbye.

Sometimes we have to be the ones to say goodbye ourselves. Not because we want to but because they won’t and we know it’s what’s necessary in order for both of us to move on. And we have to move on. Why do you we always have to move on?

It reminds me of the classic from Brian A. "Drew" Chalker
"A Reason A Season and A Lifetime”

People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They may seem like a Godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason, you need them to be.

Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends.

Lifetime, relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being part of my life....