It seems wise to save up one’s sorrow in preparation for something that you know will be kind of sad. When a bunch of your friends are graduating and leaving town, it’s usually time to build up capital in your saudade bank. When you couple that with one of your best friends/roommate leaving to build her life across the country mere days after graduation, you definitely want to compound that interest. The candy coating on these bitter pills is that even though they are leaving and you will likely lose contact for a while, they are at least moving on to bigger/better things, and and you’re pretty sure that they will excel in the greener pastures to which they are heading. So yes, It seems wise to keep a cache of somber emotions stored to prepare you for these specific occasions.
What you never expect, though, is that in between attending graduation ceremonies and parties and quality time with your soon-to-be ex-roommate, you will casually check up on your Facebook status and find out that a friend of yours was missing and subsequently found dead. You also don’t expect 5 minutes later to learn that another one of your friends passed away seemingly as suddenly, on the same day. All that saudade you saved that was supposed to be slowly dispensed as you said fond farewells and gave goodbyes hugs and kisses to your departing friends was just spent and debited in less than 300 seconds, and you STILL have yet to say goodbye to the people who are leaving.
What do you do? What else can you do, but say goodbye to the people to whom you can say goodbye, try not to harsh anyone’s mellow by talking about what you learned in between closing graduation ceremonies and opening graduation parties, and quietly say goodbye to those to whom you could not say goodbye until you have time to properly pay tribute to them.
Mind you, this is a terrible idea. Penning down your already spent sorrow to put on a mask and act like you are okay for a few hours for the sake of others who did not know your too-soon departed friends will make it worse with which to deal later. But what can you do?
Drinking the pain away doesn’t do much for your psyche, neither does visiting the approximate sites of their too-soon passings. Talking with friends brings tears, and thinking alone brings tears. You know that this is much more difficult because it was two people younger than you, and in two different situations. The odds of this happening are so slim, that it is hard completely contemplate it, which makes everything worse. You think you still have to maintain a strong face in front of your friends and roommate who are leaving. It was definitely a bad idea to spend a few hours holding down that pain and shock, but it would have been a terrible idea to skip saying goodbye to people whom you know you may not see for a long while. Because if there is one lesson you learned from untimely passing of your two friends, it is to not take for granted an opportunity to see people for which you care and tell them you appreciate them.
So you take off a day or two from work, process all of your spent sorrow for all of what happened during the weekend, and try to be cogent in life again so that you can face the world again. This all sounds great in print, but you’ll see how it goes tomorrow.
Que saudades.
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