Read more: Why We are Meant to Struggle with Goodbyes

You’ll often hear people say they’re bad at goodbyes. They usually say it like an excuse: like they’re bowing out of a movie date, or Saturday evening gathering.

I always found this funny because I don’t think humans are rigged to be “good” at goodbyes. If we were, that inherent craving for connection we harbor would be pointless. Connections are meant to entangle us, embrace us. When we sever them, pain is a given. And pain? It doesn’t matter how well we can handle it; we’re not supposed to be good at it. The human condition is not meant for pain any more than it was for goodbyes.

But goodbyes: they teach us discomfort. They show us something we can be unabashedly bad at because we’re supposed to be.

In my own life, goodbyes are weirdly karmic. Namely, I am never present for them.

I never know when it’s my last time seeing someone. They just never show up again or drop off the face of the earth. Sometimes that drop is the “final” one — the permeant one — where a phone call or text can’t transcend time and meaning.

I was absent for both major passings in my life. For my sister, I had just left to return to law school. For my father, my vacation flight was urgently rescheduled. The surface reason for the change was inclement weather, but no storm ever materialized; only the small internal cyclone of grief and loss when my plane touched down in Denver, Colorado.

Over time, I realized that other touches of grief were similar. I often engaged in final conversations with friends without realizing it was the last time I’d see them. The same followed with important karmic relationships.

I vividly remember the last interaction I had with a love important interest. He streaked into my life like shooting star, burning hotly before he touched down before me with flickering intensity.

Lives were pulling us in two different directions, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. In the moment it felt like we were tied together on some ship tilting toward a distant horizon. We rode together until the edges of a shoreline emerged in the distance. We continued toward it — steady on — until everything stopped. Our last encounter was at an event where unspoken promises were exchanged. Then, there was this seismic shift where we both were sent overboard and left swimming in separate directions.

It was sudden. Unexpected. Shattering.

Looking back, reconciliation was possible but we were toying with the intricate entanglement of two lives who weren’t meant to be permanently sewn together. We had to separate to pursue separate lives and lessons. It hurt like hell at the time. It felt like I was being robbed of something I never quite got to hold. But that was the lesson: you aren’t always meant to hold connections, or bid them this special goodbye.

Next month, I am faced with another seismic goodbye. I planned to be there for the departure, but work called. I didn’t even connect the overlap of dates at the time. Then, suddenly, it hit: I would once again be absent for the departure of a dear connection.

I don’t know if our paths will ever cross again. She is heading to a place I fought furiously to leave. Revisiting that area isn’t on my radar; but she is. Because she was my first friendship after years of healing unbalanced relationships. In some ways, it felt like we were placed together in the right place, at the right time, to help each other heal. Our pets meet at the dog park daily, sometimes multiple times. We laugh, and exchange stories, and complain about life’s seasons. She has become one of my dearest friends. Her departure feels like the excision of a special memory.

I told her about my work travel during her moving weekend. She was forlorn at first. Then, after a long look, she said: “Well, it’s better that way, I guess. I’m not good at goodbyes.”

I wanted to say “me neither,” but smiled instead.

Because we’re not supposed to be good at goodbyes in this life that ties us together like purse strings. Invisible threads meant to close around the good parts of our lives and contain them until it’s time for them to open again; trappings yawning wide to facilitate the arrivals and departure of important connections in our lives.

There is a good in goodbye – not to be good at them, but to see the good in being so bad at them.

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