Goodbyes and Journals

A couple of weeks ago, one of my closest friends gave me a going-away gift for my upcoming year abroad in Córdoba, Spain. She gave me a journal—an 8.5 x 11, green, lined notebook whose cover says:

She decided to free
herself, dance into the
wind, create a new
language. And birds
fluttered around
her, writing "yes"
in the sky.

I got two more journals as going-away gifts. The next from Kevin, a friend in my writing workshop group. It’s handmade from India, with a tie-dyed cover and gritty, natural pages. My last journal is from a long-time friend who studied in London this summer; it’s small and leather, and decorating the cover is a silver elephant—my favorite animal as well as a good luck omen.

They’re beautiful, all of them. But there are a lot of pages to fill in three journals. My aunt says I should just regift them at Christmas—not a bad idea, since I’ll be spending all of my money this year traveling and trying to keep up with the Spanish nightlife. But I’m not going to do that. Not only because the idea of regifting makes me shudder (with the exceptions of well thought-out regifts that have personal value), but also because I already love them. Each journal is a friend whom I admire for its unique trait: the first one for her poetry, the second for its rugged earthiness, the third because the elephant looks at me with a smile, like she’s known me for years.

Goodbyes and journals are a great combination. It’s been harder than I thought it would be to say goodbye, however temporarily, to my friends. So now, with the gifts of these journals, I have some new, portable friends whom I can confide in: whom I can tell about my awkwardness in speaking Spanish, about the blisters on my toes from staying out all night dancing, friends who will listen when I freak out about growing up and grudgingly becoming an adult. They might not laugh at my witty/nerdy (depending on who's describing) jokes like Dan does, or smile as contagiously as Audrey does. They might not be as comforting as Michelle’s hand linking with mine, or as warming as Sam’s saying, “So much love for you, PumaKat.” But the journals will listen to me, and they’ll absorb who I am, and I’ll learn who they are—and that’s really the most fundamentally important part of friendship.

I’m moving to Spain but bringing all of my past experiences from the United States, a country I love, with me. In doing so, I’m creating my own culture, my own language. And I know that I’m doing so with the support and encouragement of lots of people—my very own “yes”-writing birds. Goodbyes and journals: I’m leaving something familiar and receiving something new. But I’m also blending it all together into an entirely new experience, a new freedom.

Thanks for reading.