Goodbyes

How do we say goodbye to those we lose? Losing people we adore, love and enjoy in our lives is never an easy task. Many of our goodbyes are semi-permanent as well. When someone close to us in some way passes away, we hold memories of them in our heart and mind forever, saying goodbye only to their physical presence in our life.When we change jobs, or addresses, we lose folks as well in those situations. Try as we might, most time we lose the connections we had to these folks on a daily basis. We mean to stay connected, but life's obligations and rhythms make it difficult much of the time. Sometimes we lose folks in our life due to differences of opinion, those situations are tense and hard to deal with in their own way. Sometimes we try to meet on a middle or neutral ground, but often in such terse situations, try as we might, success is not achieved to remain connected and meaningful in our exchanges.

Ways to cope with loss vary from person to person, truly there is no right or wrong way to grieve a loss of any kind. Sometimes we may not understand the persons ways of dealing with the remains of their memories and feelings, but it is their way and judging them is not beneficial to them or to you. Support is what folks need in these times as well as acceptance. When one can find coping mechanisms to deal with their loss, it helps them to lead a happier life, though life can and never will be what it was. That leads me to what life is full of, and that is change. Change is something we have all the time, people and situations move in and out of our life much more often and rapidly we might like it to occur. These are things we cannot control, the sooner we can realize that the easier the change itself might be to deal with for us.

At a beloved job, I learned about dialectical behavior therapy. One of the key components is radical acceptance. There are things in life we somehow just have to accept at face value, for what is is and do our best to move forward, and we all move forward at different speeds. It is okay that we all process our situations in different ways and on different time tables. We should be less judgmental of how people do process things and give them room to go on at their own pace in their own time. I will also add here, that some people seem to stay stuck in the angst the remainder of their lives, never truly able to let go of some of it and move forward. When loss becomes obsessive, it will often drive others away, leaving some wondering where their support committee went. It also means one needs be cognizant of where they want life to go. I am not saying people should forget, but one needs to learn what they can about themselves, and take the necessary baggage from the past and keep it where it needs to be for them to live productive and a life as fulfilling as possible.

I also am reminded of many people saying, you do not know how or what I am feeling, you have no way of knowing. I like to reflect back, of course I do not know, I am not you and cannot begin to feel what you feel within your heart and soul. To counter I like to add, and you cannot feel what I have dealt with in terms of loss, either. I can only attempt to support you, listen to you and be there in some small way. People that want to help want to do just that. Sometimes it is awkward to know just what to say or do, but your circle of people will want to help in some fashion, no matter how small to let you know they care. Being a helper/listening individual I find myself in support mode frequently and want to help others with their goodbyes and issues with them. I am not an expert by no means, just a willing empathetic soul that has a need to reach out and be there, even for some I barely know.

Goodbyes are rarely totally terminal, we tend to keep some of the morsels of the person, job, experience etcetera  in our memory locker, to pull out in fond remembrance or to warm our soul on those difficult days.Even when we try to erase things and people from our conscious, we retain fragments that pop up at unexpected moments. From my experience, most of these fragments make me smile or remind me of an important lesson of life that I learned. In closing, there is truly no average or standard in goodbye and dealing with loss of any kind, one has to deal with it from their own need as well as desire to move on with this journey we call life.


                                                       ~~~balance in all things~~~