A PROPER GOODBYE

I am being constantly bombarded by goodbyes this week. And it's tiring, to be honest, to watch faces you might remember or forget come and go as you count the hours to your last exam, to the final day when you would never have to cross paths with that professor that made you go through hell and back, to that much-awaited trip to the beach or the bed where you can pump that fist in the air after that first five months of school.

Even though it's only two syllables, it's tiring to say that word that might just end it all.

One of my classes taught me how to practice proper goodbyes.

Looking back, I realized I was never good at it. Usually the word came out in distorted heaps, half-smiles, smudged makeup and teary eyes. Goodbye was not a thing I excelled in. But I guess some things do deserve a proper goodbye. Some things like the crazy people you'd do underwater stunts with, the kind-hearted madman who doesn't give a shit whether you pay attention in class, the nameless boy in the school halls you've secretly had a crush on, or even that eccentric, good-looking professor who told you about proper goodbyes.

Every beginning deserves an end, and finally, the cycle is complete.

And you just stand there, permanent as you are, as the world changes before you. In less than a month you're thrown in a new class with a new set of friends. You'll be hanging out in different places, preferring strawberry iced tea over cups of coffee, your best friend's advise to smile with your teeth over grinning without, and long walks under the starry night over staying at home and hitting the sheets. Every day will go about like a movie on a constant fast forward till everything's new again in a blink of an eye and a hitch of a breath. There will be plenty of #throwbackThursday's and #flashbackFriday's,and memory after memory will keep resurfacing in your head as your friends become friends but not quite friends and the hellos turn into a series of goodbyes that made you wish you've never said 'hello' at all.

For a girl who has heard over a thousand goodbyes and learned better not to get emotionally attached, I should be immune to the anti-permanent structure of the universe. But I guess, like some terminal diseases, there is no cure for a proper goodbye.