Bidding Farewell can be upsetting, not always though. Sometimes, they become a medium of healthy exit, one that prevents slow decay, the kind that festers in stagnant, unventilated situations. Although some goodbyes are imposed, unpleasant, and untimely, some are necessary and prudent.

I recently said goodbye to my employer of long time. The comfort level needed to truly feel at home is what I had attained working in this company for 5 years. It was nostalgic to leave a place that had become a familiar habitat in this foreign land, a place where I could be myself. Technically, my first taste of working in the real world came from this very employment. Prior to this, most of my roles were either casual or intern/Volunteer kinds. As I assumed the responsibilities of my role and helped my client procure their desired outcomes, I transformed from a mere knowledge bearer to an enabler. The hours devoted towards academic pursuits gained a newfound meaning. Meeting a diverse set of clients and their diverse problems served to expand my exposure. The joy brought on by financial independence was liberating altogether. I felt empowered, confident, and able to carve out an identity outside of my inherited endowments.

Furthermore, as a team member of this company, I also became privy to some of the fun drinking, dining, and partying undertakings organised at regular intervals. The last one being my farewell for which we went to dine at a Korean barbecue restaurant located in the CBD. Amid the assortment of sizzling meat cuts atop the fire pit table and generous serves of barchan, we chatted, ate, drank, reminisced, grew boisterous, and made merry. As the evening progressed, the most anticipated farewell card came my may. I worried, I would be tearful reading the messages panned by my colleagues in a giant-sized card, but thankfully they only made me a little sentimental. To sum up, it was a memorable night, one that I will treasure always.

It would have been so much more convenient for me to continue this work rather than venture into a new career path, the one that aligned with my interest and stirred a passion in me. But I was compelled to choose this healthy exit when my curiosity trumped the feelings of convenience.

Unlike professional, personal goodbyes are not as formalised. There is no concrete exit date. The ties of relationship wither away, disintegrating piece by piece until what is left is not enough to sustain it in its original form. I believe I have also said goodbye to a special bond of the past and welcomed it in its new form. The special bond of two friends forged through years of unadulterated tending.

Oftentimes, the most genuine forms of bonds are forged when two people connect over their shared inclination to supposedly absurd, unusual, and quirky things. Ours was that kind of relationship, the kind that blossomed when two classmates were drawn to each other due to their shared obsession over ludicrous things. Subsequently, this union transformed into a friendship that incited envy in many hearts. We understood each other so well that nothing went unacknowledged and unattended. The compulsion to share the minutest of details of our lives was so strong that we became inseparable. Spending all day in the school together was not enough, we needed to engage in an hour-long phone conversation to share all that transpired in the time between we left school and reached home. Visits to each other’s homes and sleepovers became a common occurrence and our families grew accustomed to seeing each other often. We had build a kind of friendship that was beyond anybody’s understanding, the kind that dispelled others due to it’s oddity.

The friendship remained steady all through our growing years as we transformed from two adolescents to fully grown adults. Things changed, people changed, norm changed, and we too changed but remained twosome. Our jokes were exclusively ours, our grief never experienced in solitary, and our faith in each other infallible. Over time this collective living blurred individual differences, creation the illusion of a singular outlook on life. I don’t know if we were fortunate to have had the luxury of living in our own little universe or disadvantaged to have overlooked the innumerable realities that existed parallelly.

It took a separation of thousands of miles a period of almost a decade for this illusion to shatter at last. Living on two different continents miles apart, we had to navigate through our personal and professional difficulties in absence of support to which we were nearly addicted. Burdened by our day-to-day woes, we lacked the energy to share all that came to pass. With curtailed contact, we started losing conviction and confidence in our friendship. The bond started to hollow out slowly.

The varying surroundings and circumstances caused us to follow a growth trajectory that was different from each other. As a result, our values, ideologies, and interests started to take an independent shape. Our priorities became different, and our triggers of fury and frustration. The same thing that cracked us up into tearful laughter failed to incite a genuine tickle. We changed and the shared vision that we once embraced was lost.

It was our shared naivety that acted as a glue to keep our bond locked and secure for many years. When life got muddied with the filth of the real world, the longstanding innocence was stripped. We started becoming well-versed in mind games and manipulative tactics. We inadvertently dragged the equation of our friendship into this newfound approach. Occasional ignorance, neglect, and disregard started to surface making it hard to expect the same affection and reliability. The initial response may have been anger and grief but after some time, it was understood that the transformation was in the making for a long time.

During one of the morning meditation sessions performed using the headspace app, I heard the instructor say in his assuring voice, “Everything changes, and while the idea of change may be overwhelming, the direct experience of this truth is what sets us free.” I thought, ‘Why is the idea of change more intimidating than the real experience of it?’ It may be because we do the injustice of compressing a wide range of uncomfortable and agonising feelings that we are likely to experience in a relatively long span of time into a singular moment of comprehension. This undoubtedly makes the idea more dreadful, intolerable even. Most often, change offers the liberty of time and when utilised efficiently it carries the potency of wisdom and strength.

I realised that it is better to preserve the sanctity of a special bond by not tampering through forced interference. That way I can revisit the memories, lather in its pleasant sensations, and feel grateful for the fortune of the experience. The friendship is still there and always will be, but I have decided to accept its transformed construction.