Saying goodbye feels like closing a chapter I’m not ready to finish. Here’s a deeply personal look at why I leave things open-ended and avoid goodbyes altogether.
Saying goodbye. Even writing those words makes me feel like I’m closing a door I never intended to shut. If you’ve ever been around me, you might have noticed something—I don’t say goodbye. It’s not personal, and it’s not meant to offend. It’s just something I’ve never been comfortable with. To me, saying goodbye feels too final, too permanent, like putting a period at the end of a sentence that isn’t finished yet. And, truth be told, I don’t like endings.
If I suddenly disappear without a word, it’s not because I don’t care or I’m being rude. It’s just that goodbye feels unnecessary most of the time. We’ll probably see each other again soon, so why make it heavier than it needs to be? It’s the same with phone calls. I never say goodbye. When the conversation’s over, I just hang up. Some people find that abrupt, maybe even a little jarring, but for me, it feels right. It’s clean. It’s free from that awkward pause where you both know the conversation is done, but you’re dragging it out anyway. I let the call end where it naturally ends, and no saying goodbye is needed.
I think a lot of this comes from my years in law enforcement. When you put on a badge, you know you’re stepping into uncertainty every single day. Anything can happen out there, and not all of it ends well. Every shift, I’d walk out the door, knowing there was a chance I might not come back. That’s a heavy thing to carry, and it changes you. It makes you look at life differently, at people differently. It sharpens your priorities in ways you don’t expect.
Before every shift, I had a ritual. I made sure as many of my responsibilities as possible were handled and tied up neatly so no one else would have to take on the weight of my unfinished business if I didn’t make it home. I also made sure the people I cared about knew how much I loved them. Those two things were non-negotiable. If I had those bases covered, I could walk out the door with peace of mind, even if the outside world was chaos. But what I didn’t do was say goodbye. It felt too much like admitting I might not come back, like sealing my own fate with a word. I couldn’t give it that power.
Maybe that’s why I’ve never been comfortable with goodbyes. They make me feel like I’m acknowledging an ending I don’t want to face. And let’s be real—life is full of endings whether we want them or not. Sometimes, they come when we’re ready; sometimes, they hit us out of nowhere, but they always feel heavy. Saying goodbye just adds weight to something that’s already hard enough. So I avoid it. Call it a coping mechanism or call it stubbornness, but it’s my way of keeping the door cracked open, of leaving room for the next hello.
When I think back to those years in law enforcement, I realize how much they shaped me, not just in how I view saying goodbye but in how I approach life in general. There’s a rawness to living with that kind of uncertainty. You don’t take things for granted because you can’t afford to. Every goodbye could be the last one, and that reality forces you to live differently. You learn to say what matters when it matters, leave nothing unsaid, and love fiercely and unapologetically. But you also learn to hold some things back, to keep a little space between you and the finality of the word goodbye.
The habit sticks with me even now, years removed from that life. I don’t like saying goodbye because I don’t want to feel that weight. I’d rather slip away quietly and leave things open-ended. It’s not about avoiding closure—it’s about rejecting the idea that things have to end at all. Maybe that’s naïve, but I’d rather live in that space of possibility than dwell on what’s final.
If I’m being honest, there’s a selfishness to it, too. Saying goodbye forces you to confront emotions you’d rather sidestep. It’s raw, vulnerable, and not something I’ve ever been good at. I’d rather keep moving forward, focusing on what’s next instead of what’s ending. Maybe that’s something I need to work on, or maybe it’s just part of who I am. Either way, it’s the truth.
And yet, there’s an irony in all of this. For someone who avoids saying goodbye, I’ve had to face more than my fair share of goodbyes in life. Some of them I saw coming, others blindsided me, but each one left a mark. Each one taught me something about myself, about the people I care about, about what it means to let go. And maybe that’s the real lesson here—that no matter how much you try to avoid it, goodbye finds you anyway. It’s a part of life, whether you like it or not.
But here’s the thing: just because goodbye finds you doesn’t mean you have to give it more power than it deserves. You don’t have to let it define the story. Because every goodbye, no matter how final it feels, carries the seed of a new beginning. And maybe that’s what I’ve been holding onto all along. Not the finality but the possibility. The chance that every goodbye is just a pause, not an ending. A moment to step back before stepping forward again.
So, don’t take it personally if you ever catch me slipping away without a word. It’s not that I don’t care; I care too much. I care about leaving things open, about not closing doors that don’t need to be closed. I care about holding onto the hope that every goodbye is just the start of something else, something better, something worth waiting for. And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.
Stay disciplined. Stay resilient.
Jim Lunsford
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