1. Everyone exclaims that this goodbye is not forever, but the truth is that none of us can ever know what tomorrow holds. No one is promised a future, each goodbye could be forever. Approach it as if this is the only moment that you will ever have, make it count. On some days forever lasts only 3 minutes and 10 seconds

2. There is no guarantee that the person that you said goodbye to will be the one that returns, there is always the possibility that they won’t remember you at all. Personal growth sometimes occurs out of sight and at the most inopportune time. They could for example have joined the Westboro Baptist Church or worse yet, become vegan.

3. Look on the bright side, absence makes the heart grow fonder, well in truth that is not always the case, sometimes saying goodbye just confirms what we have already known in our heart, that this time goodbye is forever, and that moving on is also part of being human.

4. When saying goodbye to a lover, the pain is directly proportional to the depth of the love and the potential time and distance involved. The discomfort can be made exponentially worse by those lovers with flip phones or those traveling to remote lands.

5. Sometimes goodbye simply Illuminates the obvious, that you and your soon to be goner are going in opposite directions. A dead giveaway is when someone is crying and someone is jumping up and down with unabashed excitement, totally oblivious to the flowing tears.

6. The fear of goodbye is palpable, we try so hard at times to avoid it. Knowing full well that the avoidance stands in the way of our personal growth. Goodbye becomes the first step on a journey that seems so right once that hurdle is overcome.

7. By far the worst goodbye, is the one that you have to say to yourself, the one that was never said, the opportunity missed, and gone forever.

8. Beyond the obvious goodbyes to people lies another entire world. The goodbyes to your youth, a particularly painful one, the goodbye to your childhood home, goodbye to your favorite shirt, goodbye to your gender, one that I found to be particularly significant in my own life.