"It's weird...you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on for just one more second, just so it hurts a little bit more." -Tonya Timmons
And here it is: the final blog post for my English class.
Maybe you too will be parting ways with your fellow classmates in just a few days. If so, you might understand it when I say that we'll be free from the confines of the white walls that held us together for the past four years. Did I just make high school sound like a prison cell? Is there a difference? Just kidding. But seriously, all these thoughts about bidding, to some people, a final farewell is making me nauseous. The welled-up tears in my eyes, the pit in my stomach, and the dizziness in my head caused by the realization that it's the end of this road, makes me absolutely woozy. I loathe this feeling. But I know that goodbyes are inevitable and therefore so are all the emotions that come along with it.
Because of the new TV series Touch, I learned about the Chinese legend of the red string of fate: the idea that gods tied invisible and connected string around the ankles of the people around the world whose lives are meant to touch each other. And this idea that some people are meant to meet one another, to make a difference in each other's lives, isn't new. So I've been thinking more about it lately because graduation is right around the corner and I would like to think that I will still be connected to the people I have (and haven't) met in high school. Because the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not I'm ever going to see some of these people ever again is killing me.
However, there's another idea that struck me that Duncan Watts in a Psychology Today interview spoke about. He said: "When I joined the Navy, I went through a process of random allocation to a unit. Two guys were with me throughout the recruiting process; we all lined up together, and we each went to separate divisions. In that moment, the rest of our lives got determined. When I look back 24 years later, many of my best and oldest friends and people with whom I had all kinds of life experiences, and without whom I wouldn't be the person that I am--they all were in my division. Do I think that wasn't random? No, of course I think it was random! There was no hand of God coming down and moving me around so that I would meet these people, and go on to have the life I had. But do I think it doesn't mean anything? No. Meaning is something that we create, so it's just as relevant when we associate it with random outcomes as it with non-random ones."
For me, this was an inititally surprising take on fate. Maybe Watts was right in that God, or any spiritual being, had no part in setting up his life experiences. Maybe, in contradiction to Touch, life isn't formulaic and sequential. And maybe life is completely random. Was it random that I met the people I met in high school and had the experiences I had? Maybe.
But regardless of how things came to be, the ultimate thing to take away from the ache of saying goodbye is being able to remember the meaning of our experiences with one another; it's so difficult to part ways because for whatever reason, we were supposed to meet. Those memories will be with me for as long as my health allows.
And that's why I can sleep at night. That's what puts closure on everything: knowing that there's a thread of remembrance linked between me and my peers. Even though we may be miles apart, our memory ensures our close proximity. The legend goes that the string may stretch and tangle, but it will never break. I know that this may be goodbye, but it's not forever.
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