the case for a strong goodbye

the case for a strong goodbye

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I've long been guilty of the French exit1, aka the Irish goodbye, aka the quiet escape.

I absolutely love starting things. I love a new beginning and that clean-slate, fresh-start feeling.

But I find endings to be pretty hard. And messy. And so I've found it easier to try and downplay them, to slip away, to not make it a big deal.

This applies in multiple situations.

When I was younger, at social gatherings, once I hit my limit, I simply gathered my things and walked straight out the door. I didn’t want to bother anyone with a goodbye, or risk staying even one extra minute.

This is also true of jobs I've had, relationships, projects, living situations… Internally, once I felt it was over, then it was over, and from that point on, it was about execution. Moving through the steps as quickly as possible.

Rushing past goodbyes sidesteps the mess. Untangling the bittersweet knots of memory, shared experience, and emotions is hard work. There’s also great efficiency in barreling through. But there is a cost, too.

Without a solid close, one risks leaving energy behind. They might be small traces or bigger remnants. Call it unspoken words, emotional residue, psychic debris.

If anything, it’s a missed opportunity.

I had a former boss who said, “People remember strong beginnings and strong endings. They don’t remember the middle.”

I had two friends I used to hang out with a lot, H & R. I adored them; they were super fun. We hung out mostly at social events, and I was really struck by how they would enter and leave a room.

When we would go to a party, let’s say a gathering at someone’s house, they would take the time to walk around and say hello and introduce themselves to each person in the room. And when they were getting ready to leave, they would make it a point to circle back around and say goodbye to each person, too.

They are Ecuadorian, and I learned this practice is cultural. It’s considered rude if you don’t greet each person one by one. Same with departures--shouting a general “Bye!” and waving from the door isn’t sufficient; one should make an effort to individually acknowledge everyone present.

Granted, this always made the goodbye process last longer, and had to be initiated at least a half hour before one was actually ready to leave.

But aside from that logistical detail, this impressed upon me a very clean way to bookend the experience. There are no energy leaks here. The individual eye-contact-and-handshake hello and goodbye embodies that “strong beginning, strong ending” concept.

This lesson extends beyond parties to all kinds of life transitions. We may be in a rush to move forward, to get to that next step or stage, to know the answers. But we might not be as willing to formally acknowledge, or even celebrate, the stage we want to leave behind. To give the goodbye the time and space it deserves. To bookend the experience.

I'm in an intentional career transition, and part of me wants to figure it out and move forward, like now. And yet, there are also a lot of things about this transitional period that I’ve really enjoyed and become accustomed to, especially in terms of total autonomy of my time. Of course, there is also a black cloud of financial anxiety and the existential career crisis that anyone alive in the AI age experiences. So at a minimum, it feels irresponsible--and at worst, completely reckless and stupid--to not just get on with it already.

But another part of me knows: I can’t speed-blaze forward and add to the heap of bungled transitions. How can I choose differently, with a heart-centered and aligned close? How can I process and ritualize what I’ve been through before walking through the next door?