Fear of saying 'goodbye'

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Goodbyes are one of the hardest things to do and learn. Once you know a person heart-to-heart and on a level rarely ever found, it’s nearly impossible to say goodbye. They know everything about you and you about them.2

To say goodbye to them would be like saying goodbye to your life, because they are your life. They make your life worth while and bearable. You come to them when you have a problem or a life question. And when you don’t have someone like that in your life, what do you have? Nothing.3

The only thing you’ll have is God. That’s the one and only thing you’ll be able to rely on through the tough times in your life after you’ve said goodbye to your best friend. 4

But, for me, that’s sometimes not enough. I need a real, breathing person, who I can carry a conversation with to talk to. I feel I need an audible voice to answer my questions and give me advice. Without my friends, who am I going to talk to? Who can I relate to? I have wonderful adults in my life, but there’s too much of an age gap to be able to relate the way a teenage girl needs to be able to do. I can’t understand their level of thinking, and I don’t feel comfortable telling them all the deeply personal things I tell my friends. But what happens when I don’t have my friends?5

If there is nobody there for me, nobody relatively similar to me that I can relate to, what am I going to do? If God is the only one I have, will I be able to do what I have to and live the life I’m living? What if I’m alone there? Will I be able to trust completely upon God to give me all I need? 6

And what if He doesn’t grant me with a friend as close as my friends now? Is that a test? A trial to show Him, and I guess me as well, how much I can rely on Him? If I would pass that test, it would prove to me what relying on God can really do, because sometimes that’s all you can do. But will I be able to do that? Can I survive alone? I know at first, I will be lonely. It’s going to take a long time before I find a friend who I can trust. It took me a well over a year to really open up to the friends I have now. Does that mean for a year or so the only true friend I’ll have is God? Will I be able to do that? What if I can’t? What will I do if I can’t? How can I? How will I? 7

I can’t let my fears overcome me, but that’s what I’m doing now. I’m scared, terrified of the next years of my life. What’s going to happen to me? I don’t want to end the relationships I have now. Those friendships are too precious and irreplaceable to just throw away and forget about. Those people aren’t going to be a part of my day-to-day life anymore. So slowly, I will become separated from them, and I don’t want that to happen. I need those people. They have gotten me through the toughest parts of my life so far. They’ve helped me beyond the explanation of words. I can’t live without them. Yet, I’m going to have to, and I’m scared. What if I can’t do that? What if? 8

What if? I hate ‘what if’. Why can’t all my questions be answered? Then fear wouldn’t be a part of my life. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about tomorrow. Then I wouldn’t have to lie on my bed and cry because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and to the people I know. Why do we have to have the pain in the world? Why can’t the world and all the lives in it be perfect? Why? Why does life have to be the way it is?9

I’m letting my fear get the best of me, and I know I shouldn’t. But, sometimes, I can’t help it. I’m not brave or emotionally strong. I may seem to be unaffected by the unknown, but really I’m not. There’s too many ‘what if’s’ to not be afraid, too many uncertainties to be sure of yourself.10