Never Say Goodbye

After ten glorious days of whooping it up, I woke up at the crack of ass to drive Biology Girl to the airport. As we pulled up to the terminal, a man and a woman stood on the sidewalk, embracing tearfully. I couldn't really tell what the relationship was, but it looked to me like a brother and sister. They stood with their arms around each other, chins resting woefully on each other's shoulders, tears running down their faces. "Oh," said Biology Girl as our car came to a stop, "a tearful goodbye." She turned to unhook her seatbelt, looked me in the eye, and reached for her door handle. "Let's show them how it's done."

You see, Biology Girl and I have gone through many goodbyes together. She lives two states away, but we visit six, seven times a year, and so we're constantly au revoiring ourselves silly. And let me tell you, it SUCKS. Completely. This is because I am in some serious friend-love with Biology Girl. I hate it when she leaves. I want to throw an inner tantrum every time it happens. But I don't. And neither does she. Even though she's one of those Sex in the City friends, the kind where you could hang out all day, every day, and never get sick of each other. Even though we have no problems crying in front of each other-- in fact, if there's any crying happening with either of us, the first thing we'll most likely do is call the other. Even though we tell each other all the most embarrassing truths about ourselves, including the time one of us accidentally left her underwear at work and the time the other one accidentally got her grad school professor to say "I love you" during a meeting. So when she moved down the coast four years ago, I thought I would die. Yes, I said DIE. Dramatic? Yes. But we have it like that.

So, the funny thing about this is, for all the emotion that goes into this relationship, you'd think we'd be one of those tearful-airport-goodbyes people. Au contraire. For some reason, when it comes to goodbyes, she and I are the most stoic mo'effers you'll ever care to meet. In every other part of our relationship, we let it all hang out. She was the first person I called when I found my high school journal so I could read the incredibly cringe-inducing passages aloud to her ("...he was wearing his tight blue jeans today...") and I was the first person she called when she experienced her first "relapse date" (when you re-date someone you thought you were done dating). But with good-byes, we turn into...I don't know...college football players, who downplay emotions into a "bye, dude" even though they just spent the afternoon hitting each other on the ass and intimately rolling around in the dirt. Not that Biology Girl and I have ever hit each other on the ass or rolled around in the dirt, but figuratively speaking, you get what I'm saying. We just give a quick hug, maybe a "seeyalaterbye" and she walks into the terminal and I get into my car. Done. No fuss no muss.

I don't know why we do this. Maybe it's because the goodbyes suck so bad, and we are so overwhelmed with emotion, that we don't want to start up with the waterworks or we'll just be boo-hooing for the rest of the day. Maybe we've said so many goodbyes to each other that they have just gotten easier. We know we'll see each other soon. There's no sense of wistfulness, like you have when you say goodbye to someone and you think you may not talk to them much any more. I know that Biology Girl will most likely call me on her cell phone before I even get back to my house. So I'm not sure why we do this.

So, as Biology Girl said, we did show all the tearful goodbyers on that terminal how it's done. A quick embrace. "See ya." "Yeah. See ya." "Call me later." "Yeah."

See ya.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl