Saturday, August 8, 2009

The "good" in a goodbye

I always saw myself saying “goodbyes” more often than “hellos”.
Someone always left.
And sometimes it did get old answering the question “Did that hurt?” to myself. Because, it did.

August called for yet another string of adieu moments.

Ujala finished her doctoral thesis and went back to India for good. Anand shifted his base to UK. Annika, Holger and Steffi, who have been much more than just lab technicians to me, will be leaving soon too.

They say love and friendship is intensified by absence. But I haven’t matured enough in life until now, to assimilate how much of this thought holds true.

In fact, with time, the cluster of people I held on to became smaller and smaller. Some people got separated by physical distance, some by time and some by emotions.

It’s funny, but there were people with whom I played practically every single day but later didn’t see them for over a decade. And when I eventually did, we had grown so different from each other that ensuing friendship purely on mutual acceptance, without judging each other would have been difficult. Hence, we let go.

And some people just drifted apart, even in close proximity. So much so, that even if I tried picking up from where we left, eventually I had to recoil. For how long can one sustain a conversation with monologues?

But then I have friends with whom I have been together since I was one digit old. And I’m so glad that they are stupid enough to still put up with me ;)

Everyone who left lately was of some emotional significance to me. And as much as their presence made a difference in my life, so will their absence.

My partial progression from a highly volatile female to someone who has muted herself to the noise outside is all thanks to Ujala. Yes, I somewhat owe this to you. And Iam still trying my best to let go of the “Let me rip you” fleeting moment I face every now and then :)

Anand, I can’t thank you any less either. With all those honest exchange of opinions and heated arguments, you made me realize that there are umpteen ways of looking at life and not just me and my ways. To be candid, it was always hard to argue with someone who was so perfectly content with himself no matter what label you were to tape on his back :)

Both you guys pulled me out of my forced solitary confinement; a time when all my thoughts defied logic and consequently I was at my weirdest.

Annika, hugging you goodbye was painful. And so will be the case with Holger and Steffi. We clicked beyond colour, race, language and culture. Lab will never be the same without you all. And trust me; I will be always glad that I came to Germany and I met you guys, even if it was for a brief moment.

While closing this all I want to say is that the past gets subsided in some corner of your memory shelf. And may be something else even takes its place in due course of time.

People leave. And eventually the voices fade and the faces blur. There is no bailout.
But we always remember how we felt with them, at some point of time in our life.
And you all made me feel good.

Take care.

Love.

AB

6 comments:

Unknown said...

probably a coincidence, been in the same boat, for a week or so..!! here just retrospecting the old times in my case..!! the funny part is, most of the places, the "best friends" tag is like a variable wrt time, coz the ppl also change, but we only have those moments to recapitulate and just wonder, that the time scale goes back for moment, thats where the harsh reality strikes..!! its just like driving a wagon where a few ppl hop on with us, making the journey awesome or awful and then dropping off, thats where you realize to "let-go".

Arpita said...

Phewwww!That was something, esp if I see it coming from you :P

Seems like "The changed people" have knocked off your senses for good. But don't let anger kill you, borrow my gun.And Goli maar do "kalmoohey/hee ko!!Boom..boom..

Unknown said...

ha ha.. well one must not let out these things randomly coz they carry significance, else its lost..!! :D

and yeah talkn about "changed ppl", its their loss more than mine..!!

Arpita said...

Well..In 99% of the cases, yes..But that bloody 1% continues to hurt, if people you love and care for avoid you like plague.
But having said this, still life goes on :)

Anand said...

Thanks for the nice words for me (atleast I assume it thus :-) ) Itna nahin sochte. Abhi tak you have had only two places of residence and hence you think thus. Once you also have few more town added to your list, you'll learn how to move on without losing those whom you don't want to loose and run off of those, under the pretext of movement, whom you wanted to get rid of :-)

Arpita said...

@Anand
Ab blog main gaaliyaan kaise nikaloon??I have to be polite :(

"Run off those,under the pretext of movement, whom you wanted to get rid of".
Cough cough..Ab main kya boloon..that makes so very sense that everything else you said just soundde noise ;)Baaki sabko scratch maar deejiye!