Good-bye, Philippines: How to find the ‘good’ in good-bye

Someone once told me to find the good in good-bye – because it’s there. It has always been there. 

But how could you find that good when life suddenly decides to make all things uncertain and turn your universe upside down? That was when I realized that to find that good was easier said than done.  

It was 8 years ago since that realization. I was a teenager then and it was my first time to leave the country by myself. Everyone told me that I was fortunate “living the dream” and that I should not waste it. But all I understood was that I was leaving 16 years of life I’ve known and loved. 

Many years have passed yet I could still vividly remember that night at the airport when I was about to board my plane to Australia. I looked around that terminal and saw myself in men and women who were also leaving. It was easy to tell their stories yet it was hard when I asked myself, “Why?”

Maybe the middle-aged man who sat just across my seat in his jean jacket and blue maong was also asking whether it was really his dream to go aboard. 

Was it really worth it to leave his wife and son, and his 11-month-old daughter behind?

Or that young woman, confused, and in tears next to that man, texting her last “I love you” to her childhood boyfriend. Maybe she tried hard to reassure herself that love would still be there once it was time to go back home. 

But all those maybes were just as uncertain. 

Love and good-byes

I knew that in that terminal, everyone was trying to dig deep to find his or her own answers. I knew that they were trying to comfort themselves with the fact that they were in love and were loved back. 

In that terminal, love was everyone’s weapon against those good-byes. It was that love for their own dream, their own family, or their special someone that kept them going. Yet no one, not even I, was brave enough to admit that it was that love which made it harder to find that good in those unbearable good-byes. 

Indeed, love was being tricky that night. It was one’s weapon and its own enemy.  

And despite my firm belief in true love and lasting relationships, on that night and those first few months of being alone, I questioned that kind of love. I thought that maybe some were just not meant to have it. 

But years passed and I have fallen in and out of love. Often, relationships ended before they even started. And during the lucky times, I tried to make things work, shared the time I had, and gave the most I could.  

Yet good-byes were still inevitable. The universe was not on my side. So I asked myself again, “Why?” 

I realized that it could have been the lifestyle I had. I was living in two worlds with no permanent address of my own. I would always go back to the Philippines and visit my parents whenever I had the chance, then fly back to Australia after weeks of being away. 

I experienced the grief of letting go, but at the same time, appreciated what I left unnoticed. I had to fall in love, out of love, and experience the heartaches of good-byes to notice the unconditional love I always had from the people back home. 

Dreams, plans, and good-byes  

And so I understood that the seemingly unresolvable mystery of good-byes could be a direct consequence of falling in love. 

In fact, bidding good-bye to a plan I started to fall in love with was one of the toughest to let go. 

Coming from a family of lawyers in the Philippines, Australia was never part of my life’s master plan. I already knew what I was going to be and where I was going to reach that goal ever since I could remember. In fact, my yearbook in preparatory school in Manila had “I want to be a lawyer” as my ambition in life. 

I learned to love that plan early on in my life. I followed each step to reach that goal. But life wouldn’t be life if it did not have its own twists and turns. 

Although my ambition did not change, the plan of staying in the Philippines did. I saw myself packing 16 years of my life in one luggage just days after my family and I decided that there were new plans for me in Australia.  

Indeed, life has its own way of surprising and ending things with no warning. But instead of trying to solve that mystery, I accepted my reality and experienced life to its fullest. I started to look for other avenues and introduced myself to other possibilities. 

The answer in finding the good

And so how did I find the “good” in good-bye? 

I realized that good-byes were conclusions of something that happened in one’s life. So I let those be the endings and accepted that something even better was at hand. 

When I was at the airport that night I left for Australia, I kept holding on to my boarding pass and told myself that it was my ticket to some place I had to be. I understood that what I thought was my life’s master plan was not meant for me. 

I decided to start new relationships, wrote the new chapters of my life, and continued to fall in love despite the possibility of another good-bye. I understood that pain was inevitable but love was constant. 

And so I stopped asking “why” and forged ahead with my life. It was then that I realized that there had always been a good in good-byes. – Rappler.com  

Ace Tamayo is a journalist and an Australian Clarion awardee. He is currently pursuing his law studies at the TC Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Ace is a hopeless romantic and believes that true love exists. Follow him on Twitter @AceATamayo