Saying goodbye

Today was, as so many times before, time for someone close to leave. And I don't mean the kind of goodbye that say see you tomorrow, or even next week or next Christmas, this is the kind of goodbye you say to someone who you might never see again. - You just stand there on the train station and don't really know what to say, then the train comes and you suddenly don't really have time to say what you wanted to say anymore so you just hug and say it as well as you can. But at least that is better than airport, where everything is just dragged out and it feels like you are torturing yourself with it. - My first goodbye like this was nearly 3 years ago, it was Karen from Singapore and Matthew from HongKong, I wasn't very close with either of them so it wasn't that bad. My next one after that was much harder though, it was Joyce, my girlfriend from HongKong, we had only been together for a few months and she had to return home.
Since then there have been so many more, just this week it was Nancy from Canada and today Duong from Vietnam, and there will still be many more to come, YanWei will leave on Tuesday, perhaps she will come back for a day in end of July but there will still be one more goodbye. And soon it is my turn, I will be the one who'll leave, who have to say goodbye to all my friend, of course I will return, but when I do I will have to say goodbye to whoever I meet wherever I'm going.

But as it turns out distance can be overcome, even though it at times can feel truly overwhelming. To have friends far away just makes a good reason to travel far away. I actually met Karen, the Singaporean from 3 years ago only a few weeks ago, and that was the second time we met since she left, we might not have been very close when she left but we are good friends now. And Joyce, we stayed together for 2 years, we have visited each other several times, even after we broke up. And Nancy left now because she came back to visit me after almost two years.
I don't believe in goodbye anymore, I believe in see you later, even though it might sometimes be much later. The world is growing smaller and I think I will meet both Duong and YanWei again before summer is over, and Joyce too.