What I Had Told You Under the Smoky Sky

My nose pressed up against the car window, I waved - my hand beginning to tire as I watched her clouded, red eyes - a give away to her otherwise cheerful expression. And then she was gone. Seven hours away for seven years now; only photos taped to my wall to remind me of those eyes. 

That was the first time I said goodbye.

After Jenna left, I found myself wandering; helplessly alone. I chose paths without direction and blindly leapt forward. I had not been looking, but I found a friend. Katrina - a companion I’d take for granted for the next eight years. 

She, and a handful of others, became a shield from the awful reality that would become change. I began to build a safety-net around my childhood - caught up in the idea it would always be there. 

Before my fourth grade teacher left, we had learned The Cup Song. Every morning we’d create a circle of plastic red cups - practicing the perfect goodbye. It didn’t end up being so perfect: in the nervousness of the moment students forgot the rhythm we had refined and our carefully curated goodbye became a messy one. When my teacher cried I thought it had been disappointment in our drumming. 

Years passed without another farewell and I became hopeful that my pattern wouldn’t repeat. We were carefree - laughing, singing, and laughing through our math class, hikes, and talent shows. There was an oblivion I was infatuated with maintaining, and if I ever came too close to losing someone, I would deny the possibility. 

My perspective changed when my grandpa started to talk about dying. His concern was expected - in an assisted care center, with his Parkinson's getting worse and worse, his fear was reasonable. The last time I saw him he couldn’t open his eyes or mouth so I paced the room discussing a debate topic with myself, watching his face crinkle and stretch towards a pained smile. I didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable - not when he couldn’t eat, not when my grandma cried, not when he said hoarsely whispered “goodbye Amelia”, and not even when I heard my mom on a late night call and the muffled crying that followed. 

I had gone to school, wrapped myself in my safety-net of hugs from friends, and carried on. Why should I dwell on what is inevitable?

But unlike my grandpa's passing, I would find my emotions being toyed with by unforeseen turns of events.

Our class' final trip approached just on time to replace my uneasiness with excitement. The people closest to me were splitting in different directions - a fraying friendship bracelet, the strings unweaving as they reach opposite from one another. Katrina, Sam, Annabelle - my sisters since third grade, kindergarten, and preschool - were already buying books for their big private schools. I remember my teachers calling the Rite of Passage trip bonding time. 

How can I get closer to people that have always been family?

It seemed that the only space left to grow between my friends and I, was apart. To be greeted by a warm lunch was rewarding after a long bus ride to our campsite, but as I sat amongst my friends it felt like a somber family meeting. Only, we hadn’t planned to discuss the agenda for the upcoming fall. 

As the week progressed, our limits were stretched and tested. Day and night with the same people felt like bungee jumping. My patience would decrease until a good laugh snapped back my restored tolerance. But it built trust. Trusting students I never got to know, holding their hands as we slipped through the ropes courses. Trusting my friends to pull me up the fifty-five foot swing. And, on the last day, it was them trusting me, to lift each other up and over a wall. 

Throughout the week, hundreds of pictures were captured. Everyone wanted something to hold on to, although I doubted I’d ever forget the trip and people I was surrounded by. I already had thought of a place on my bulletin board for them - between a picture of Jenna, my grandpa's debate polaroid, and the talent show certificate from fourth grade, there was still somehow room for more.

On our last night, we sat in the amphitheater, hastily building smores and performing skits. I remember the dark sky being starless - tall trees clouding our horizon, sweet sugar syrupy melodies, sticky like our smores, echoing in the amplifier. To close off the week, we had been instructed to address someone we appreciated. And as the sky blackened, each speech drew me to reflect on my relationships. I remember wrapping my arms around Katrina and Noah on either side of me, sharing knowing smiles with friends that extended beyond them on the wall. Each smile a page in my scrapbook. As tears collected in each pair of eyes, mirroring the same expression I’m sure they saw in mine, I couldn’t think of another time we had all been together like this. My home. Something that felt so familiar yet I found myself terrified, realizing there was still more I had yet to know about them. 

I hadn’t known Noah to cry, wiping away the sparkling reflection in his eyes, I hadn’t known Sam to loudly recite embarrassing stories, projecting throughout our cabin, I hadn’t known Harper's voice to waver while remembering our Cup Song - I hadn’t known the goodbyes to be confessions of gratitude, rather than abrupt partings. It was our plastic cups from fourth grade reciting the same rhythm of separation, on repeat. 

“I want to make a speech,” Katrina suddenly hissed, leaning over me. I turned to her in surprise - seven minutes ago she had been reluctant to stand up to perform our skit. 

She must’ve seen my shock because she began to elaborate, “I want to say thank you.” 

I nodded at her, smiling through my wet, kaleidoscope eyes, faces beginning to spin -

“I know how you feel.”

It wasn’t her brief speech that moved me, but the courage she found to do it. I knew she was pushing me to do the same. She knew me too well. She would always catch me when I slipped, but she knew when I needed to fall too. 

 As I cried, my emotions flooded, memories churning my spouting tears. I grasped my friends hands, carried myself around the firepit trading warm hugs for “I’ll miss you”.

I had to let go at some point to the safety-net. Letting go meant trusting myself to fall again. I was learning how to fail and how to hurt and how to climb my way back up and prepare for the next tumble. I’m proud of my pattern. 

I now soon had to learn how to say goodbye. 

We went on, laughing, singing, laughing, and crying like old times. I set a plan to be vulnerable - one that will take time to complete - but I made progress around that campfire.

 That night I had confessed, a separate, gentle mumble in each ear, 

“I love you very much.”

Withstanding two close friends moving, teachers leaving, my grandpa's passing, and now - finding out what happens when we part our separate ways - has taught me acceptance. And It’s not always a goodbye - distance gave me an excuse to see my friends more often. I will never pretend that night was perfect. I know now, that there is no perfect way for someone to leave. No childhood neatly wrapped up with satisfaction. But this moment, under the smoky sky, where no one but us can hear our sniffling whispers, this seems pretty close.