Goodbye Wonderful Copenhagen

It's my last day in Denmark and it's been raining all day. Wonderful, dreary, Copenhagen. But I'll miss it. And I'll definitely miss all the people I've met here. Most of them are moving on to new things (or will be within a year) so that makes it just a little easier to leave. I know that if I stayed it wouldn't be the same without them. And someday, when I move back to Copenhagen, it won't be the same then either, just like it wasn't the same the first time I returned. It will be a foreign city all over again. It's true, the people make the place.

The strange thing is that I know I am going to miss this place I've called home for the past two years and the friends I have made here, but I don't actually feel very sad about leaving. I guess "goodbye" gets easier every time you say it. Or maybe it's easier because in today's world of skype, cheap flights and email, goodbye really doesn't mean what it used to. At least, I like to think that's the case.

Then again, maybe I've just burned myself out on goodbyes. Take, for example, my recent visit home. My family dog is on her last leg (almost literally). She's 15 years old, or 105 in dog time, so I've been saying my last farewell to her every visit home I've made in the last 3 to 4 years. And my parents are planning to sell their house within the next year - the house my sisters and I grew up in. Now, my parents have been talking about selling the house for years and every time I used to think about it I felt a little bit of sadness and regret that I didn't take a proper look around before I left the last time I was home. But this time I made sure to clean out the things I had been storing at my parent's place these last few years, throwing away old mementos and bad photographs, and when I was bringing my bags out to the car and my mother reminded me to say goodbye to my childhood home I half-heartedly strolled through the rooms, surprised at my own indifference. I gave my dog a hug and told her that I loved her, but for the first time with totally dry eyes. It's not that I wasn't sad, it's just that I wasn't heart-broken by it any more.

And that seems to be how I am dealing with all my goodbyes right now - without the heartbreak. Is it because I've said goodbye so many times that I have no more whole pieces left to break? Am I shallow, cold and unfeeling? Or is it that all the goodbyes have taught me that the story doesn't end just because you've said goodbye, that I am a strong enough person to go through life without the heartbreak. At a goodbye-dinner last night, a good friend who has been to Africa before told me that I'm bound to see people in situations that would break your heart, and see them everyday. I know she's right. And then she told me that she thought I was strong enough to handle it. I hope she's right.

And now I'm off to say a few more goodbyes, so farewell.