By Lauren
I knew I would have to say goodbye to countless people during my gap year. When I said goodbye to my family in September before leaving for three months, I didn’t cry. In December, when I said goodbye to the five girls I had spent three months with in Central America, I didn’t cry. I figured I was just good at saying goodbye.
The first time I realized something shifted in me was at the end of February when I said goodbye to two people I met in Thailand for 9 days. Up until then, I had been sad leaving people and places, sure. We would hug, talk about all the good memories, promise to keep in contact, hope to visit each other, and wave goodbye. In a slightly twisted way, I had a routine. I never ruminated on the heartbreak. It was a blue I could accept and understand as a part of travel. Sometimes I felt guilty that I didn’t appear more emotional when parting compared to my peers. I mean this in the best way: Tabitha and Zac were just like anyone else I met traveling. Of the friends I had really gotten to know while traveling so far, the three of us knew each other for the shortest amount of time. Just 9 days. We all got unusually close in that time. I loved our late night talks, shared jokes, and hugs, but I didn’t expect that I would feel absolutely gutted when we departed. At our farewell dinner, they cried and I held back tears as we pitifully tried to plan a future trip together knowing the chances of it materializing were slim. I thought I would get better at saying goodbye throughout my gap year. After months of saying goodbye to new people, it should have become second nature. Instead, it only got harder.
After that moment, I noticed how I felt more and more somber at each farewell. Saying goodbye to my family in April was nothing short of impossible. This would be the final time during my gap year I left home, and for the shortest amount of time. Yet somehow, I struggled the most at the airport. Even my goodbye hugs with my mom seemed to get shorter each time we went to the airport. As my plane took off, it left a gaping pit in my stomach. I thought back to all the other times I had left home during my gap year, when I had laughed my way through goodbye. On my plane ride to Malaysia, I wondered why on earth this was happening to me. I didn’t understand why. Why did I get worse at saying goodbye?
I hesitated on writing a blog post about this because it’s a question I don’t have the answer to.
Maybe I got better at letting people in. The person I was from September through December knew she would have to say goodbye and kept people at arm’s length in an effort to protect herself. As I traveled, met more people, formed intimate friendships, I became more open. And in turn, each departure meant climbing out of a deeper hole I had dug for myself.
One of the reasons I told the DGYP I wanted to take a gap year is because “I wanted to figure out who I was with no one else around”. In a new country, where no one knows who you are or what you’re like, you enter a sort of “temporary world” that can be quite freeing. The people you meet don’t have any expectations of you, of who you were yesterday, of who you’ll be tomorrow. Every person, every country is a fresh start. The benefit of this bubble is that it takes away social pressure and judgement. There is less reason to put on a facade, which gives people room to be more honest with each other. I think that helps friendships accelerate. In time zones far away from home, this bubble is strengthened by the fact that the people you would usually rely on for emotional support are all asleep. The only people who can help you when Mom, Dad, friends, etc. are asleep are the people beside you. Naturally, relationships deepen quicker because of this.
My final theory is that the known limitations of traveling to a place for a set amount of time forced relationships to be more “choice-based”. At home, friendships are partially shaped by circumstance and proximity: school, work, church, mutual friends, etc. Travel strips much of that away. Each breakfast, bus ride, and conversation is a choice. People aren’t forced to go places with you; they have to choose to come. That makes every little part of the friendship intentional. When I said goodbye to people I met while traveling, the continuation of our friendship was also a choice. Each text checking up on each other was intentional. Even when I was abroad, I noticed that some of my high school friends and I got closer. Each text we sent to check in on each other was a choice that brought us closer together. For the first time in my life, I experienced friendships that were completely “choice-based” through travel. The extra effort these relationships require is repaid tenfold by how deep they can become.
I like to think each of these theories play a hand in why I became worse at saying goodbye to people throughout my gap year. Now that it’s almost time for me to leave for college, I can’t help but wonder how my gap year has shaped the way I approach friendship. Am I more open now? More intentional? Maybe even a bit more emotional? I left home thinking travel would teach me how to arrive somewhere new. Instead, it taught me how difficult it is to leave.
