Odd Good-Byes

Good-byes have to be the oddest things. At their worst (or best, depending on your perspective), they are fraught with anxiety, sadness, and sometimes even eagerness for reunion--all at once. But the oddest kind of good-bye is the good-bye you say to someone to whom you aren't really close. It leaves an odd feeling in the stomach. It's not sadness (because the person is leaving); nor is it regret (because you wish you'd been closer to the person). It's just the oddness of finality. And aren't we conditioned to resist finality and to mourn any relationship that has had some good in it, even if the goodness was not substantial enough to be significant? Perhaps it's also the oddness of not really knowing whether it's true that you won't see the person again. It will be a crap shoot: you don't know that you will indeed keep in touch. You also don't know for sure that you won't. Maybe it's that unpredictabilty as it relates to your own behaviour that produces the weirdness. What a strange psychological space.