The only thing I like about farewells is how we try to make the end memorable. Be it a colleague leaving the company, a friend leaving the country, or you leaving behind the only home you have ever known.
No matter how you must have spent your life till that moment, the only memories that will remain with you are the moments that happen in the last few days.
The final few conversations where you bitch about your boss, take those chai breaks, and make a nobody-cares-about-it ppt together.
The final few times you hang out with your friend at your favourite adda, the drinks you enjoy, and feel-good-random-makes-your-heart-smile talks you have.
The final few days where you sleep in your favourite room, enjoy the balcony view of the sky, and your nicest-people-your-parents-have-met friends come home.
You keep doing these things on repeat mode until you leave because you just don't want to forget. You aren’t sure whether you have collected enough moments to last in your memory. You want to enter your future with the backpack of a beautiful past. So that till the time you find your next comfort zone, you have familiarity to unpack the times you feel stranded.
I started thinking about farewells because last week my best friend moved all the way to a new country. His farewell was a series of safe meetings with his loved ones mostly indoors, a few photographs to remember, and a lot of texts and calls. If things were different (because who knows what's normal anymore), his farewell would have been the one he truly deserved. It would have had more time, more smiles, and so much more love.
(And more opportunities to irritate him with my superb taste in music!)
Now when I see someone in a similar situation, I only hope that their loved ones are sending them away with enough love to survive, enough memories for them to thrive.
So yes. The pandemic took away from me the only thing I like about farewells. My last chance to show someone that I'll truly, truly, truly miss them.
Beautiful Nikita! :')