And it got me to thinking: One of the strange things about living abroad like this is that you spend months forming close relationships with people, and inevitably everyone heads off in different directions. Life, in general, seems like that to me — “Llegadas y salidas, así son nuestras vidas,” is my attempt at a witty Spanish quotation. It means, more or less, “Arrivals and departures, like this are our lives.” We’re always coming and going. Sometimes we pause for a few, jogging in place, but never for long. You can live your whole life in the same spot, but that doesn’t mean you’ll stop moving. Objects in motion stay in motion, and we’re all objects in motion.
Living abroad exposes you to this concept, this ebb and flow of life and relationships. To have people in your life — for a minute, for a year, until death do you part, whatever — is such a human thing. There’s no need for us to travel, and make friends, and swap stories and cultures and languages and ideas. There’s nothing necessary about it; our lives would go on even if we lived them with our families from birth to death without ever leaving our yards.
But we humans don’t work that way, at least not the vast majority of us. We live to have people in our lives. To meet a person — to know a person — can be among the most powerful of human experiences.
As my study abroad friends said their goodbyes Thursday night, there wasn’t much direct talk about the future, merely a few muttered mentions of “If you’re ever in California …” and “Have a great time in Belgium!” and “We’ll see each other on the flight home, right?”
What went unsaid, though — that was the good stuff. Bear hugs that would’ve done a grizzly proud. Eyes dry and red and fighting so hard not to spring a leak and send everyone in the room into hysterics. Luda telling our friend Evelyn, “I know this must be emotional for you,” with the plain truth scrawled across his face like the tagline on a highway billboard: This was emotional for him. A few minutes later, his back slumped against the wall, Luda came clean: “I don’t like goodbyes.”
Another departure had arrived, another going that would soon be followed by another coming. “God,” Luda said, “tomorrow night I’m gonna’ be eating dinner wit my parents, talking about the future and shit.” (Pardon his French — he’s Belgian.)
His words put me aboard a train of thought: On Monday, I’ll be eating dinner with my parents and sister — over an ocean, across six time zones, and in the other half of the Spanish-English dictionary. I’ve said my fair share of goodbyes this week as well. “If you’re ever in Toronto …” and “Have a great time in London!” and “We’ll see each other in September, right?”
If you wish, you can call it sad, but really it’s just part of how this life thing works. If it stirs our emotions to part ways with people, that means that those relationships were special, that the times shared are worth remembering. We came, and here we are going again, and we’re all better for it. Llegadas y salidas, así son nuestras vidas.
And that’s just the way it should be.
Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose24@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter, @BackwardsWalker
by 
by