Do you have trouble saying goodbye?

                            Never Can Say Goodbye

                                   Penned 3-15-07

Today I heard that old Michael Jackson song Never Can Say Goodbye that he made in the early 70's as a child with the Jackson Five.  I remember working at a local radio station when that song was hot. 

Anyone that ever lost a love could see why that song would make you feel so melancholy.  You never really come to complete grips with losing a love.  You learn to adapt without them and most will go on and meet someone else and believe they are in love again.

But interestingly enough when we hear one of those old songs that made an impression on us when we were in love with that special someone, we are transported back into some of those in love feelings all over again. 

Then there are those people who enter and exit our lives all the time that we have become quiet fond of.  These represent the true st form of platonic relationships that we can have. 

This is seen especially with co-workers. We have bonded with many of these people in a very strong way and them with us. At work many times, people become like a little family.  Then one of them moves on with their lives and we are left with feelings that we don’t know quite what to do with. Some of us will become blue, depressed, moody and irritable and it may take a few days or weeks to get our bearings. 

It also happens at churches we attend.  The pastor and his family may leave or other church personnel or members that we have bonded with.  We experience a sense of loss and feel depressed for a while. 

It of course happens in families sometimes when someone might move to another town or state.  These feelings might even be more intense for the short while.

Of course experiencing the death of family or friends will do the same thing, but the recovery time will be longer. 

So, saying goodbyes can be extremely difficult for some.  Part of it could be connected to abandonment issues that a person has experienced as a child while growing up perhaps in an unstable home or losing a parent through death, divorce or other types of separations.

The central theme of loss seems connected to the feelings we all have from time to time when realizing that we are so small and insignificant in this giant universe that we live in. 

We need relationships to validate us.  Desperately we need family, lovers, friends and acquaintances and it is important that they like us or at least that we perceive that they do.

We so desperately need people.

I like that old Barbra Streisand song, People.  Part of the song states “We’re children, needing other children, and yet letting our grownup pride hide all the need inside.” Yeah, that song has those tremendous words, (a feeling deep in your soul, says you were half now you’re whole).  We are whole with people and not being able to say goodbyes has everything to do with us needing people, needing the other half to make us whole.  That’s why I find myself now not even mouthing the word goodbye when I am leaving someone that I love. Take care and I’ll see you later.