Hellos and Goodbyes

Airports, doorways, and everything in between

The Dolomites

Hi friends,

There’s a kind of purity in the moment you see someone you love after a stretch of time apart. Maybe you’re scanning the crowd, the arrivals hall, the driveway, or the threshold of a familiar home, and then they’re there. That face, that walk, that smile, and all the distance between you collapses.

Hellos are quite easy to romanticize: the arms flung around shoulders, the quiet relief of there you are, the laughter that bubbles up. But goodbyes carry a type of beauty, too. That final glance before security, the way someone stands at the door, waving until the car turns the corner. Even the silence after the goodbye, the way it echoes with meaning, says something.

I’ve long struggled with goodbyes, always have. Even as a kid, I remember dreading the end of a visit with a loved one or vacation, not because I didn’t want to go home but because parting felt kinda final. I didn’t know how to hold the ache, and I still don’t always know what to do with it. Sometimes I try to make the goodbye quick to avoid the weight, sometimes I linger too long.

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. - Billy Joel

Lately, I’ve been trying to see goodbyes not as endings, but as evidence, proof that something mattered, or that someone mattered. Proof that time was shared, and it meant something. That’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? That’s kinda the whole point of it all, right?

Airports might be humanity’s most emotional spaces because of the way they hold both ends of the emotional spectrum, both reunions and departures, love rushing in and love being let go. Just last week at the airport, for instance, I saw a young woman was in tears walking through security. Earlier this year, Ally and I encountered another young person crying after saying goodbye to her parents; she later told us she was heading away for another semester of college, over 1,000 miles from home. “I don’t usually get like this,” she told us in the security line, wiping away tears.

At the other end of the flight, by the arrivals section, Ally and I enjoy watching airport reunions. There are usually relatives running into each other’s arms, grandparents crying as they meet new babies, a partner arriving with flowers, or someone handing over their loved one’s favorite food after a long flight. It’s raw and unfiltered joy, a reminder that the world is still full of people waiting for each other, to love and be loved.

Ally and I are on the road now, so naturally we’re in that pensive mood you get while traveling. We’re moving through Europe by train, crossing through mountains and languages and the kind of disorientation that travel brings. It’s been full of hellos, and some goodbyes, too. A few days ago, we parted ways with Ally’s cousins after sharing lots of wine and laughter and hours of conversation that only seem to happen when no one is checking the time. When we left, we hugged at the bus station. As the bus rolled out of the parking lot, we looked outside the window to wave goodbye again. They had already started waving to us, too.

These moments remind us we’re tethered to one another, and that no matter how independent or busy or grown-up we become, there are people who make our arrival a little brighter, and our leaving a little heavier.

So here’s to the hellos that make us feel known, and the goodbyes that remind us we’re loved.

Celebrate your gifts,

Matthew