Something that has baffled me for a long period of time is... why is it so hard to say goodbye? Come to think of it, a goodbye is just a word expressing "hey... hopefully you should look BETTER next time i see you" (not. i just used the comparative form of the word "good".) it's actually just a greeting. good. bye. is all. then, why, do most of us seem to have this stark difficulty in saying it? maybe just to the people you love. i don't know. today, for instance, i was watching Friends, and it's the episode where Rachel is leaving for Paris, and Ross is willing to do anything to stop her, even give up some of his paleontology artefacts (BIG feat for ross, just btw.) it sort of reminded me how difficult it was to say goodbye to my friends in saudi arabia, with a silent but unkept promise of keeping close. it reminded me how difficult it was to leave my loved ones. the whole universe, i guess, is built up through love and the grief of separation is inescapable. right? it's just this two syllable word, yet the pain of it seems to throb on, long after it's said. "goodbye..." an empty promise of meeting again. who knows? the world is really small, but then again, if it's so small, how come i don't run into beyonce? so, what's WITH this word anyway? what's with the entire pain of separation thing? how do people leave impacts on our lives, that wiping them away from your memories becomes something simply impossible to do?

slowly the leaves of my memory fall... gently i collect and gather them all... today, tomorrow, and every day through, i shall always be thinking of you.

i'd really like to find out WHO invented this word, then SLAP them HARD across the face. period. i'll just end with this thing i heard once:

"to meet and part is the way of life, to part and meet is the hope of life".

but what do you do if the thread of hope is just not strong enough to hold on?