A Thousand Goodbyes, 1000 Hellos

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A Thousand Goodbyes 1000 Hellos

I read an interesting snippet this week from the book This Is Me Letting You Go.

"To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they're too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don't recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.

I think for us as parents and individuals its helpful to hold this in mind.

If we're parents we learn to let go of our typical expectations of our child and embrace their victories, which are probably different to what we had imagined, when we were handled our precious little bundle after their birth. We say goodbye to typical expectations and hello to a word of new delights. Our son is 36, and I am so happy when he says hello when he calls me. Often he doesn't. The other week, I had 2 hugs in one week, which has never ever happened before! I wasn't expecting to be delighted by those things, and I am. Hello new things.

If you're autistic or ADHD or both, you have said goodbye to some expectations of yourself that might have been placed on you as a child trying to belong or fit in. My hope is that you have decided to embrace being yourself. Hello to your authentic and beautiful self.

Whether you're neurospicy or not, being in any long term relationship requires saying goodbye to who we were, so we can say hello to who we are. Paul and I have just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversay and we've said a lot of goodbyes, and a lot of hellos, as we've both grown and changed over a lifetime together.

It's life. There are losses and changes and gains. It hurts and is beautiful all at the same time. What do you need to say goodbye to, so you can make room to say hello to new things in your life?