Goodbye doesn’t scare me anymore.
Goodbye makes me look forward to what’s next, to a new start and to the next chapter I’ll start by myself.
Goodbye taught me that people don’t always stay and the things that belonged to you today can belong to someone else tomorrow.
Goodbye taught me that nothing is guaranteed and that people can easily change their minds.
Goodbye taught me that getting too attached to people will eventually hurt you.
Goodbye taught me to expect that anyone can leave but it also taught me that I can leave too.
It taught me that I can say goodbye too.
Because goodbye is not the challenge, the challenge is how you handle it and the challenge is in starting over.
And sometimes you have to say goodbye before even saying hello.
And sometimes your life begins after goodbye.
When you know you can make it on your own, when you know you can survive, when you know that your hardest goodbye didn’t break you and when you realize how much stronger goodbyes can make you.
And sometimes you survive a goodbye that you didn’t even get; sometimes people leave without even saying goodbye and that’s how you know that even goodbyes are not promised or guaranteed anymore.
Goodbyes can sometimes be better for us and sometimes they’re exactly what we need.
Goodbyes can be the beginning of rediscovering ourselves and it can be the beginning of our breakthrough.
I don’t fear goodbyes anymore, somehow, something always tells me when things are about to end and somehow I prepare myself for goodbyes long before I actually get to say them.
But goodbyes also hold a little bit of hope, because goodbye is not farewell, goodbye means till we meet again, goodbye means maybe not now but later, goodbye means someday we’ll say hello again; at another place and another time and goodbye is not always the end.
And sometimes the happiest endings start with goodbyes.
By Rania Naim for ThoughtCatalog