Saying goodbyes
February 17th
By the end of the year, I might have an opportunity to go back to the USA. The company I work for bought 3 factories in the United States (Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Utah) and they will need experienced personnel to go there and oversee the implementation of our system and way of working to make them compatible with our other 11 factories already operating around the world. As soon as I found out about it, I put my name for it — I mean, I have vast experience with the current work system and experience of 20 years of living and working and getting an education in the USA. I don’t know if I might be selected, or what exactly they will expect of a person who goes there, but given a chance, there is no doubt in my mind I will say yes.
I told this yesterday to my therapist during our session. After five minutes of me talking, she had to stop me. She said that I was so giddy and excited talking about it — she herself got very excited. Even though this is still a very far-fetched idea. She said she doesn’t remember me being that animated and stirred just by a sheer possibility of doing something. She said I was so inflamed and exhilarated that it become contagious, that she herself lost her calm and composure for a second.
I guess I was all that. I haven’t been to the USA for 10 years. I planned to go back — just for vacations, but a week or two won’t do. I would need several months there to do everything I wanted. And that is rather difficult to fit around my current life and work. And that would be expensive as well. But going there for work — that is a whole different story and more realistic to do. My therapist asked me to think why actually I am so excited about this. Thrilled by a simple possibility. I came up with various answers, but what really struck me was her suggestion that I want to go back there so much because I never get to say goodbye to a place that was my home for the majority of my adult life.
There is something in there — I left the USA abruptly after Jola’s illness and my spiraling into a depression and addiction to such a level that I am still surprised that I was able to actually pack and get plane tickets and get to the airport and go back to Poland. I just left. I guess I had to, just to stay alive, but still — I left 20 years of my life there. Good times, bad times. Some memories, a lot of remorse. But there is no denying that I am who I am now because of my time there. And yes — I never got to say goodbye to my previous home, and I guess I long for that opportunity and that chance.
Come to think about it, I missed a lot of opportunities to say goodbye to places, to circumstances, but mostly to people. There are several people who were very important in my life, to whom I never said goodbye before they were gone. It was always my fault — I didn’t feel strong enough to face the truth or was denying the reality of what was happening. Well, they don’t care about it now, since they are dead. But I do. I feel that there was no closure in my relationship with several people, solely based on my cowardice and addiction that gave me an easy escape. And I couldn’t let it go for a long time. It would bother me and stay on my mind, pushing me into anger and pity and more drinking. So, yes — I feel it is crucial for me to be able to say goodbye, to have a final conclusion to a significant part of my life. And to other people as well, I want them to know that they are important to me as well. I don’t want to make this mistake again — losing somebody without at least a single goodbye.
