See Ya Later?

"Because we have a moment here...let me tell you that I have recently become a secret connoisseur...of last looks. You know the way people look at you when they believe it's for the last time? I've started collecting these looks..."
-Drew Baylor, Elizabethtown

Not the greatest movie, but an interesting concept nonetheless.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the movies alone after work-- simply because I'd never done it before-- and because it's cheaper before 6pm. I watched Becoming Jane. Then I came home in a Jane Austen-y mood and watched Pride And Prejudice. The more I watched, the more it got me thinking-- about saying goodbye.

I can't help but wonder if through our own human advancement, we've made interaction with each other more convienient for lifestyles-- but harder on our hearts and relationships.

Nowadays, technology allows us to keep in touch—almost to a fault. We've got GPS trackers and cell phones and blogs and online photo albums and facebook and myspace and text messaging and skype and—all kinds of other crazy mess. It's really difficult NOT to stay in touch. All you have to do is google someone's name and there you have them. Add twenty bucks and you can get a full background check too. Nowadays you have to WORK to lose somebody.

Say you're trying to avoid someone. Or cut them out of your life, for whatever reason. Besides letting go of all the little things (pictures, movies, songs, foods, landmarks, articles of clothing), if you really want them gone, you have to block their myspace. Take them off your top friends. Change your relationship status. You have to unfriend them on facebook. You have to delete their email address and their cell number, change their special ringtone and text message alert, and take off the alert you had on their AIM screenname. You have to change the background picture on on your phone AND your desktop. You can throw away their address, delete your digital pictures and burn your film ones and at that point there's a chance you've lost them for good…

Except for the fact that any time, at any moment of weakness, you could google them, pay that $20 and get all that info back in under 24 hours.

Back in the day, you burnt their letters. And there were no scanned backup copies or photocopies or trash folders to rummage through. There wasn't even Scotch tape to put the ripped pieces back together! There were no background check websites. There were no phones and no planes and no cars! It took ages to get anywhere, to get ahold of someone. There was no such thing as instant communication. If you wanted to escape someone, all you had to do was leave. It was done. And it was entirely possible that person would never see you or contact you again, unless they wrote to your family's house.

I can't help but feel sometimes that maybe we were never meant to stay so connected to everyone we've ever met. Maybe we were never meant to pop in and out of each other's lives so quickly and carelessly.

People used to savor their times together, because they really never knew when they'd see each other again. There was such thing as a stranger on a plane or on a beach. I bet people didn't take each other for granted as much, because they didn't have the luxury of being in each other's faces all the time. They could never really be sure if they'd see each other again-- so they just enjoyed whatever time they were given.

I've reflected hard on these things because I have real trouble saying goodbye. If I have enough time to think about the gravity of goodbye-- I can't do it. I'll demand this cinema-quality closure-- closure that reflects and honors the depth and intensity and importance of the relationship between me and the other person-- closure that I rarely get.

So many times I want to not think about it. I want to just say see ya later. And sometimes, in an effort to fight the pain of truly & properly saying goodbye-- I do.

But I don't want to do that.

I want to live every moment like it's my last and say every goodbye like it's my last. I realized that sounds sort of dramatic, because we all tend to expect to see people again... but what I mean is that every time I walk away, I want to leave with an attitude and a countenance that my friends could remember with joy if I never saw them again. I don't want to walk away sad or angry.

I want to make the most of every potential last moment.