We’ll meet again

One might think that, after having changed nine schools and two universities, I’d have gotten the hang of farewells.

It is true that up to the age of eight, I can hardly remember some of the faces of my ‘friends’. Then again, were we really ‘friends’? Surely rubbing paint in each other’s faces and playing tag during recess (as I did with one particular boy) is not what you’d call friendship now. Nevertheless, despite the childish nature of these attempts at socialising, you might even conclude we had a crush going on. I never got to say goodbye to him because I actually did not know I was going to leave the States in the summer of 1997, for good.

By the age of sixteen, I think I got so bitter about continually leaving that I stopped socialising in secondary school. I was the tall kid with the massive headphones and the dark jeans, and I spent quite a significant amount of my time with my head buried in a book. It would be stupid of me to say I did not have any friends, I just never made much of an effort to ‘hang out’ after school. I knew that in a year or so, I’d leave them and that would be that.

But then, after we graduated in 2007, they made the effort to see me. An email turned into an in-depth analysis of Anna Karenina and some of the best brownie recipes I have ever tasted. These two people were quite different, and I am not sure they would have gotten along, but surprisingly, they mirrored some of my interests and I found that I was laughing at a computer screen every other night. A graduation trip to Ibiza was a nice kick-off for the summer before uni started, and I found that I enjoyed just having fun with other people. By the time I was leaving Sarajevo and Vienna to come to London, I had a handful of new friends and we have managed to stay in contact every now and then. Holiday trips to Christmas markets, catching up with friends, English-style pubs everywhere I go, and nice tunes in the background are what I love about going back home. Oh and homemade food only my mum can make.

Fast forward almost four years to that post-final exam Union session and one might think that indeed, we no longer have the ‘until I finish uni’ excuse to use. Most of the people I know will go on to work in the City as consultants, a few are starting their PhDs and second MSc’s, and a handful will still be at Imperial for another year. It seems that everyone has been doing the same thing for the past month – everyone is saying their goodbyes.

With one group of friends, I vouched to meet up once a year in a different place in the world. With another, I promised to visit London every now and again. I’ve offered my home for each and everyone to come and visit and I really do mean it when I say “I’ll miss you”. There are a couple of instances where I have even forgotten to say those three words – it might have been due to the fact that it was quite late at night that The Goodbye had taken place, or maybe even because I had thought it was a foolish thing to stay. Wasn’t it obvious that I’d miss you all? Everyone has their moments and each relationship is unique. If it were up to me, we’d all be able to teleport or travel at the speed of light whenever we wanted to. And I choose to ignore the limitations of that idea.

One night in November 2007, a friend and I blagged our way into a VIP area of a nightclub in Piccadily. It was about one in the morning when I saw a fami-liar face walk into the room and I heard my name screamed over the music: NAIDAAAAAAA!! My reaction was the same and this was a perfect example of one of the things I tend to repeat in my monotonous goodbye speeches: The world is extremely small and I keep getting astonished at how often this has been demonstrated to myself. I am not afraid to say that indeed, I’m one of those suckers who believe that we shall meet again when the time is right – or when I happen to find a better brownie recipe to share. Goodbye my friends, until we meet again!