All Posts Tagged With: "the internet"

At least I have skype

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about saying goodbye.  I get a lot of practice, so I’m pretty good at it.

I’m good at giving long hugs, hosting goodbye dinners, and promising to call and email. I’m good at packing, at putting clothes and books into storage, and I’m even good at shedding a few discreet tears during takeoff.

Like many students, I have to be. I say a big round of goodbyes in both April and August, and while the first days in a different city are often jarring, my daily routines fall quickly into place. Soon, those people whose physical presence was so warm and constant just days before are reduced to a voice on a telephone or a face on a fuzzy video screen.

In 2010, I’ll say more goodbyes than usual. Because I’ll spend the winter semester in Denmark, I’ll divide the year between three different cities, all of them thousands of kilometres apart.

But I don’t mind too much – after all, “goodbye” isn’t what it used to be. It can still mean goodbye forever, or at least until that high school reunion, but more often it means goodbye until the next time we Skype, or email, or text. Because I’m Facebook friends with at least half of my grade five class, all of whom I can contact or creep at my leisure, goodbye doesn’t have to mean goodbye at all (even when I wish it did.)

And for me, like many people I know, I expect these constant, half versions of goodbye will be a regular part of my life for years to come.

I’ve met people who are planning to stay in Ottawa after they graduate – after all, they have a boyfriend and a nice place and a cat – but not very many.

Many instead see themselves in permanent transit, hopping from city to city – or from country to country – in pursuit of travel and adventure, or just grad school and a job.