It's never goodbye

I’ve been in the farewell emotion lately.

So many colleagues left or going to leave. I should have known this and I do,

people start to think about their lives their careers and it’s usually a time

of change. But I still can not be cool when the goodbye moment comes.

Yesterday I went out with one of my colleagues who will get on the plane back to South Africa this morning. It makes me want to laugh thinking about this date. He sent me on the wechat during the Chinese New Year “We can go out for dinner or lunch before I go if you have time”. Sometimes he’s more Chinese than me and he's kinda proud of that. 

I haven’t experienced many goodbye time in

my entire short life. The biggest one is the one when I graduated from college.

So you can see how little I know about and what a big stranger I am to goodbye.

I was planning to give him a hug before I got off work and that’s it. But then

the hug was finished in a really funny way and left me a really sad feeling

afterward. So I asked him out for a drink(just to meet his proud being more Chinese

than I am, lol), I realized we need to say goodbye, a decent, formal one, so

that we won’t regret in the future when we start to realize that maybe we won’t

see each other ever again.

We talked about his future plan and the

interesting stuffs in this company. Gossips never grow old. I told him he was

the one who made me realize I don’t need to be perfect to be a musician. I've listened to his music and it really surprised me. Then I learnt the truth that it takes 3 months to finish a 3 minutes song. I felt so shamed that I never really pay much effort and time on music. And it hit me, if music it's the only thing I want to do if I don't need to worry about money, I should start to do it from now on. I will make shit music at the very beginning for sure, so what? 

He let me see how to be a student of life. I

was always curious about why he knew so many “gossips” and had his own insight opinion

to things or people, not in the bad way. I got the answer yesterday that he

communicated with everyone that actually appear in his life, even the one who

he doesn’t really have to contact with. I really respect that. This is an important

ability, you need to full of energy to be someone like that. It rang a bell to me that this is the reason we became friends. I didn't want to talk to him at the beginning, he was  just the other Laowai for me by then. But he kept talking to me, and  I felt the sincerity in him, that's when I started to treat him as a friend. He's just got the magic to open people's mouth, I guess this is why he knows many people's private stories. There is no road to sincerity, because sincerity is the road itself.

And he told me what he learn from me

is that when I determine to do something I’m blind to all problems. I blurt into

tears immediately. 是说我二愣子吗？ I know

that’s not what he meant and I felt sorry that he couldn’t know the funny Chinese

expression. 他在一本正经地夸我，我在一本正经地偷笑。

We talked for two hours, had baverage and ate salad. He looks even more Chinese when he tried to pay the bill. Well, he only knows man should pay but doesn't know the one who leave doesn't pay.

I felt that it was literaly the last time we met at first, but he did change my feeling that it's never goodbye. The world is so small for him. Some birds just  aren't meant to be caged. And I start to think maybe I shouldn't be so scared of the world, I can also be the one who flies around to here and there.

Buddy, you win, you convinced me. It's never goodbye.

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