The Final Farewell

So, today the remaining two left. I had thought that this was going to be the toughest farewell and that I will be a mess at the airport and that I would be renamed Waterworks Inc. But surprisingly, I didn’t shed a single tear. I got misty-eyed and all for a while but then before I knew it they were inside and I was on my way home. It was my heart that was really aching as I hugged them and said ‘goodbye’. It was a blur, I was in a daze, I could not believe that they were actually going, and I think I am still in denial.

There were lots of people to see them off and I felt that they had more of a right to feel sad and cry perhaps and somehow I felt it was not my place to cry in front of family. Somewhat like family had more of a right over my friends and that my crying would seem out of place and fake and drama queen-ish. Every now and then over the past few days the thought of standing at the airport and having to say bye to these two has resulted in a certain ache in the heart which I just cannot explain. But standing there as they left, I didn’t even look back or wait till they had gone inside. I just walked away. This was so not me. Trust me if you know me you know that I suck at farewells. I cry like a baby, my nose runs, my eyes turn red and I look a wreck. But strangely after this farewell, forget a runny nose, my kajal was still intact! This was the most unnatural farewell ever for me. It was so incomplete, not to say that crying makes it more complete. I think I am still in denial. I think that they are still in town and that in the evening one of us will call and we’ll all end up meeting in Oly at 6:00 and stay there till 10:00 and by then we would have become a larger group, and then head to SPE and then be too buzzed to go back home and so we would drink some more to sober up and then crash at either of our houses and be up till 3 talking and watching TV.

Yup definitely still in denial.

Anyway, this was the last of the goodbyes to college friends. As we were waiting for the car to come, we were standing outside the arrival terminal, which was particularly painful. Somehow the arrival terminal seems to shout out ‘Back Home’, which was exactly opposite of what I was feeling at that moment. I just wanted to run away somewhere. Be anywhere but there and then I turn around and see smiling people coming out of the airport with the look of having come home written all over their faces.

Now all of my friends are all over the country, all about to begin work, all about to earn big money, all about to become corporate whores. And I am left back in this city. This city, which I have grown to love and grown to know only through my friends and only with my friends. I don’t know how to live here without them. I don’t know how I did live here 5 years ago. Back then things were different I suppose. Back then I made good with only 1 person and a few school friends all of whom have also left this city. Did I tell you how much I hated to be the one left behind? I think I did in a previous post of mine: P

I remember S telling me nearly 3 years ago when someone I loved was leaving ‘Everyone has to go, no one stays forever. Today he’s going, and someday I will have to leave also’. Back then March 2008 seemed so far away, I just dismissed what she had said like it was an impossibility, something that could never happen. But today as I sit at home, in my city all alone, with nowhere to go and no one to go to I know this to be true. I also know that I too will leave soon and hopefully go on to make friends in another world, but none as special, none as dear, none as loved, and none but none that can ever, ever replace them.