It’s certainly been a while since I wrote a post. Since then, a lot has happened, including many changes. Between graduating, getting ready to move, and going to Wilson Hill Academy’s LINK, goodbyes have been inevitable. And these goodbyes are hard; it’s never easy to leave something or someone. But I’ve learned that goodbyes don’t have to be the end.
Many people say that after high school, you don’t really stay in touch with your friends. You don’t necessarily forget your high school friends, but college takes precedence. You will grow apart from those you knew in high school.
But I don’t think that’s the way it will be with my friends. Sure, I know there are some people with whom I will fall out of touch. That always happens because the fact is that you do make new friends, and as humans we cannot be friends with everyone at once. And yes, there may be people that I grow apart with, even if we remain friends. Again, that is a part of life.
However, there are others of us, those I am closest with, that I know will be friends for years to come. For we are not simply friends, we are family. We love each other, and we have a bond that is not easily broken.
As one of my close friends said, we can either treat our goodbyes as a sunset or a sunrise. If we decide to no longer be intentional in our friendships, we certainly will find those bonds dissolved with time. But we can make the decision to instead treat these relationships as though they are only beginning. To continue to grow them, develop them, and keep loving those we have already spent so long loving.
A few weeks ago, another of my friends reminded a group of us that “ends bring beginnings”. At the time, it was difficult to see this; it seemed to me like ends only bring tears. After all, I got to the point at LINK where I could barely get through a hug without sobbing. But through the pain of saying goodbye, I learned something: tears bond people. As close as I felt to my friends during all our happy times together, I felt the strongest bonds when we were sharing memories, hugs, and tears.
It is in our hardest moments that we learn who we truly love. Our hearts begin to beat as one, not just in the pain of goodbye, but also in the hope of things to come.
And it is because of this that ends bring beginnings. If we experience the strongest love at these hard ending moments, then it is after those “endings” that we will see the most beautiful beginnings come.
For when we begin to truly love, when we long for the day when we will be in perfect love, we have created a bond that is not easily severed. Rather than pulling up the root, we have seen a new blossom of friendship. It’s not an old plant, ready to die, but instead a sapling, barely beginning its life.
And if things didn’t end, we might not see this. We might not be prepared for the beauty of things to come. We cannot stay stagnant, for it is in change that we perhaps see the most beautiful parts of life.
All of this might seem like I am writing an ending post. And in a sense, I am. This is the end of high school, the end of a chapter of my life, even the end of my time in this state, as I am in the process of moving. And it might be the end of some friendships.
But in another sense, things are only beginning. Adulthood is beginning, college is beginning, new friendships are beginning, and old friendships are beginning a new chapter.
So this is not goodbye. Another of my closest friends used the phrase “giving flowers to the living”. She said, “We lay flowers on graves. We make speeches in preparation for silence. We tell someone how much we love them when we have to say goodbye.”
But then she continued with saying that, sometimes, it is a special gift to give flowers not to the dead, but to the living. To continue to encourage those that we don’t have to say goodbye to. To show our love for someone who is standing right next to us. So this post can be thought of as a few flowers for the living.
No matter where you are in life, you are likely either experiencing an ending or will at some point in the near future. But it is up to you whether those endings are truly the conclusion of things, or whether they will bring new, extremely beautiful beginnings to your life.
And if goodbyes are causing pain, take heart. For even if some things have truly ended in this life, we will someday be in a life where everything that is true, good, and beautiful will be forever. Where our love will be made complete and brokenness will be abolished. And where we will truly say that the end of our lives here brought the most wonderful new beginning.
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