Hello, Goodbye.

The questions started right around Week Five of the Chautauqua season: So, when do we get to leave? When our last deadline is met, are we free to go? Will Matt [our editor] be mad if I want to leave a few days early? I told them right then and there that yes, you get to leave when you’re done, but be prepared because Week Nine sucks. We don’t all leave at once; it’s a trickle of one person one day, two the next, etc. And here we are.

The recent days have been speckled with intermittent goodbyes. Some for roommates, some for fellow interns, some for Bonas people and other friends who’ve been on the grounds this year. And some of the hardest ones are still to come. It just makes me realize, once again, how much I despise goodbyes. I think that’s why I am sometimes hesitant to meet new people or become emotionally invested in new friendships or relationships — in the end, these are goodbyes waiting to happen.

I’m about ready to draft a letter to the Chautauqua trustees, proposing that they abolish Week Nine of the season. The more I discuss this with people, the better of an idea I think it is. Week Nine is, for all intents and purposes, the Lost Week. All the music, dance and opera students and the theater conservatory are gone. Everyone here is focused more on what we have to do before leaving than actually enjoying being here. It would be so much better, in my opinion, for everyone to stuff Week Eight so full of programming that no one wants to, or can, leave — then once the curtain closes on that week, those who wish to leave pack up and go home.

Maybe I’m just bitter that I can’t leave until Friday and have to watch as the social structure we’ve built and maintained for 11 weeks crumbles and disintegrates all around me. It was the same thing last year. I watch everyone leave and know that I still have a few days left in a place that isn’t my Chautauqua any longer.

There is, however, good news, and it’s not that Geico just saved me a bunch on car insurance. It’s that every time I think of my upcoming Friday afternoon drive down I-86 to Bonaventure, of rolling through Allegany, of parking, opening the door to the townhouse, finding five of my best friends and giving giant manhugs to each and every one of them, I can’t help but smile. I spent several hours on Sunday with Andy, at Bonaventure, getting the apartment settled. I know what my room looks like. Most of my stuff is there and put away or set up. The living room is cozy and comfy and only missing a giant TV. It’s home.

For weeks now, the six of us roomies have been sending e-mails and IMs and text messages to each other in anticipation of what is sure to be a rip-roaring way to end a college career. Hell, rumor has it Bonaventure’s even putting on a fireworks show for its 150th anniversary this year. If that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is. I’m ecstatic for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, shooting the breeze outside in the cool night air, then loudly playing our “getting ready for the bars” music and rolling into The OP like we own the place. (We might as well, considering how much cash we’ve set on that bar in the past year.) 

So as much as these goodbyes suck, with each one, I’m closer to the place I really want to be, where my heart is, where the majority of my best friends are, my home. I’ll never forget many of the people I’ve met this summer and it’s painful every time someone leaves, but on Friday night, I can see myself forgetting why I was ever sad.