Goodbyes never get easier. Either with time or age or experience. In fact, the older you grow and the more you see and the more you let go of things – or try to – goodbyes only get tougher. Because there comes a time in your life when the number of things that really matter to you are so few that letting go of those things – and by relation, letting go of people associated with those things – is simply the most painful thing to do. Ever.

Take the simple case of friends moving away for whatever reasons. Family, work, higher studies. Isn’t it always tougher on the people who are left behind? I mean, the ones who leave do have it rough for the first few weeks or months. And then there’s all the excitement. New things to do, new people to meet, new office, new colleagues, new boss, new university, new neighbors. A whole lot of new stuff. And somewhere along the road, it gets better. And for those who stay behind? It’s about starting all over again. Without someone whose support you counted on till now. Sure, you continue to count on it in every possible virtual way. It never is the same.

Everytime someone close to me has moved on or moved away – it’s been so hard to put on a brave front because I think that might make it easier for them. But after they’re gone? I remember the time I was moving away from Bangalore to Manipal and I’d just told one of my closest friends about it. He was walking me back home and he said, “I can’t believe you’re not going to be just a phone call away.” One of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. But I just smiled it away at that point. Just a couple of years after that, the same friend moved to the US, for his Master’ degree and then career pursuits. Sure, he’s still just a phone call away. And yet, somehow, it’s not the same.

Even when one of my closest friends at work moved out, to work with another of our offices, no less, the goodbye wasn’t easy. There is something so important about having that set of people that you see everyday, that you connect with everyday, that is vital. And I miss that. A bond where a friend knows what you’re thinking, with just a glance, a smile or the raise of an eyebrow. The difficulty in saying goodbye took on a whole new dimension for me personally, as of the beginning of this year. It doesn’t matter that distances melt and the heart grows fonder, it just doesn’t get easier. I mean, I still feel terrible everytime my closest-to-best-friend-ever travels for a couple of months for performances, at a stretch. I know I can write to her. Bloody hell, I can even talk to her. And she’s going to be back in 2 months. 3 months. 6 months. Whatever. But when I go to Bangalore, in that time, she’s not there.

These, of course, are the pleasant goodbyes. And then, there is the other kind. For a long time, I really believed that it was better to have had something and then lost it, than to have never had it at all. Whatever the object in question. Love, relationships, money. And then I was deeply influenced by the whole Siddhartha thing. That you cant truly give up something unless you’ve had it. But right now, at this point in time in my life, I can’t help but think that it’s better to not have something at all than to have it and then lose it. I really don’t miss something that I’ve never had, you know. Losing something – the anger kind of overshadows everything for a bit. But it doesn’t really last. It’s the pain that does.

Which is the reason that I was so taken in by this saying on pain by Jim Morrison: “People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over.” This makes sense to me. This also brought up an interesting exchange with a respected friend / mentor, who pointed out to me that the contrary, was, in fact, true. That this is because pain is short-lived while death is an unknown permanence. That what separates an extra-ordinary person from an ordinary one is the ability to think beyond pain, not just the ability to withstand pain itself. I’m not sure whether I necessarily agree to that. Because I personally believe that the pain never really goes away. It lessens over a period of time, it gets more comfortable, it even becomes familiar. And it’s always there.

Strangely enough, one of my favourite books is Only Love is Real by Dr. Brian Weiss. In reality, it’s pain. Only pain is real.