A Thousand Goodbyes

My daughter and I have this tradition. Everyday when we go over the Gladesville Bridge on her way to preschool we look out at that amazing breathtaking, harbor view and say “Good Morning Harbor Bridge, it’s gonna be a beautiful day.” We’ve done this every day for months. This week we changed it, to “Good morning Harbor Bridge we will miss you!” And now every day I cry little on that journey. It’s one of a thousand goodbyes we are saying in the coming weeks.
We are planning our final goodbye celebrations with her preschool buddies, other friends, playgroup buddies and with all of our adult friends. All these big events to say a “proper goodbye.” A formal place to say this is it, we will miss you all. And yet that’s not the stuff that’s killing me some days. It’s that each conversation now has a distinct feel of “this might be the last time we get coffee together, or this might be the last time we watch our kids play together, etc” It’s coming to terms with the reality that these friends who have been my support and lifeline for 2 years are now going to be REALLY far away and that while we will do our best to keep in touch time and space have a way of slowly etching holes in those relationships. 9283 miles is a long way to make friendships work. I know from experience some will stick and some won’t. Some will become fond memories and others will stay for life.
Walking through our favorite parks, neighborhoods now each time feels like a little goodbye. When we are leaving a favorite place and the kids aren’t eager to go usually you say “we’ll come back another day”, but when you know more days aren’t in the cards you are once again hit with that realization that you are leaving soon and you edit your speech just a bit. it’s going to our favorite restaurants and cafes and saying a little goodbye to all of them. It was different leaving Chicago. I knew I’d always end up back there down the road so it wasn’t goodbye so much as “see ya later.” Sydney it’s different, we MIGHT get back here we Might not. Life is funny it has a way of getting in the way of the plans we make and the best intentions we have so the goodbyes I say here I know may or may not truly be IT.