The Intimacy of Goodbye: Embracing the Vulnerability of Endings

This post was originally posted on 12/26/16 on my previous blog. 

Recently, I had to say goodbye.

This one was made up of many small and big goodbyes all tangled up into and born out of a single event. I left my job as Dean of Students at East West College after six years.

As a social-worker-therapist-type-person, you might assume that I am comfortable "sitting with" painful, vulnerable and complex feelings.  If you assume this about me, you would be correct, and​... I am still a human being!

​Saying goodbye after six years, much less saying goodbye over and over again to many people, multiple times, over weeks and months was really tough.

Photo by Amine Rock Hoovr on Unsplash

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It was uncomfortable and exhausting and hard, and a profoundly rich and sacred opportunity.  At some point in the midst of all of this, I had a thought: 

​There is something so intimate about saying goodbye.

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