How do you say good-bye? (Part 1)

Leaving my first [somewhat] real-world job. Last Friday was my last day.

It's bittersweet. Joyous. Depressing. Freeing. Nostalgic. I feel like Rapunzel in the Disney movie Tangled, when she first leaves her tower with Eugene, running around with alternating moods of happiness and horror. Quite the emotional experience.

It's liberating in the sense that you have one less obligation in your life, but scary in that my routine is different along with the coworkers and residents I usually encounter. 

I'm officially done with the two longest jobs I've held in my life: a year and a half (chemistry lab job, and 7 months (as a CNA). It's not that long, I know, but it all had accumulated in my being. Being done with college (yes, I realize it's only been two and a half years) is a strange thought.

(at the memory care side of where I work with dementia residents)

On my last day, I told Mrs. S (a resident from my experience here) that she wouldn't be seeing me here anymore. That I was studying abroad in Italy. She was lying in her bed, our faces a mere six inches apart. To my horror, I noticed redness and puffiness around her eyes. To make things worse, she softly said, "I don't want to cry."
As a girl who has moved approximately twelve times in her twenty-year-old life, the feeling that formed in the pit of my stomach surfaced and I felt my eyes ready to tear up for the first time in years over missing someone.
I naturally comforted her (and myself): "It'll be okay. I hate saying good-byes, too. And I've only been here a short while -- someone else will be here to take care of you." I even tried to laugh it off, saying, "You'll forget about me soon enough."
Looking straight at me, she says with complete seriousness, "It's not a good-bye. It's only a so-long."
At those words, I felt my heart melt a little. 

Because here's a tidbit about me - since I've graduated high school, I have never once met up or seen any friends from high school since graduation, despite my going back there over school breaks and weekends for my family. Once I started college, well, efforts were not made to revisit the past. This probably indicates the degree of my attitude about moving on in life...

College has changed me in many ways: one of which being that I've gotten close to several people, and it's actually going to be difficult to leave, even if it is for Italy. 

Advice for leaving:

Don't think about the last time actually as the last time (unless you are truly celebrating the end because that's how much you dislike your job/this person/this place)

The more you think about while you're there, the greater the depression you will fall in. It's like you're sick and know you're going to throw up because you have the stomach flu, but constantly thinking about that nauseating feeling or envisioning yourself throwing up is only going to make it worse - compared to if you ignored the fact that you did feel nausea but you chose to play Jenga or read a book to take your mind off it. 

Look at the future more than the past. 

Hopefully, changes are occurring because of a better opportunity. Remind yourself of where you are going to next, rather than what you're leaving behind. When I dwell on all the things I will not be able to do anymore, a swoop of nostalgia falls in and I succumb to it. But when I think about my unknown adventure ahead, it's exciting and liberating that my current routine will completely change.