My goodbyes started quite innocuously: with the passing of keys. One day, I woke up and realized that I would soon no longer need the keys to work. I walked to Araminta, unlocked the door for the last time, played my last pre-work round of Ping Pong with Justin, and handed him the keys. When Justin and I got back to the house that day, I repeated the same process with the house keys.
From then, the goodbyes began in ernest. The next day, I went to my last German class with Meike. I told the class and we did our last little karaoke. Later that day, I took the train to Araminta for the last time and watched Justin unlock it. Jen took us to a fantastic Yemeni restaurant as an “appreciation lunch.” We ate so much rice and chicken that we could barely move — in part because the food was delicious but also because we were enjoying our last meal so much that we did not want it to end. We chatted for a few hours, procrastinating until we had to go back and say goodbye for good. Eventually we did. Jen was the best boss I ever could have ever asked for and made the experience of working at Araminta a million times better than I ever expected. Not only was she incredibly smart, she was also incredibly interesting. And kind. And helpful. She has accumulated the type of stories and experiences that I can only hope to someday have. I told her this and more, gave her a hug, and then headed home for my next goodbye.
This happened with my host family. When I first got to Berlin, I was terrified (even if my first blog post didn’t quite express that). I was leaving all of my friends and family behind, going to a country I didn’t really know, learning a language I couldn’t really speak, and living with a host family that I had no way of knowing if I’d get along with. To be completely honest, I was terrified that I would become depressed. I didn’t know what depriving myself of all of my connections and social nets would do to me. Luckily, it was the best decision I ever could have made. Far from the solitude that I expected to feel, being with them helped me to create incredibly deep connections and to remember how fun life really is.
At Columbia, I have gotten so entrenched in the New York mentality that to live is to work that I had forgotten what life was all about. I thought it normal to think that meals over 30 minutes were a waste of time. That not talking to your friends for a couple days because you have a lot of work to do is okay. Not leaving campus because you don’t have time to explore is fine. I had lost sight of the things I wanted to prioritize,like connecting with people, spending time with my family, and just enjoying life. Being with them changed that. I know it sounds incredibly cliche, but I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that being with my host family reminded me how beautiful life really is. It wasn’t even big things, but rather just small changes. Like enjoying a hot day by going to Potsdam swimming in a lake. Like staying up because you want to chat and play chess and not because you have work to do. Like eating dinner with people every night and telling them about your day and hearing about theirs. That was one of my favorite traditions — so much so that I’ve already called up a bunch of my Columbia friends to make it a habit of having daily “family dinners” together.
My last dinner with my host family was sappy. I loved seeing them one last time, telling them how much I enjoyed being with them, and reminiscing about all of the fun that we had had. And it was horrible knowing that I might not see them again. They reassured me with a German saying which roughly translates to: “you never meet someone just once,” or that we would meet again. Already we’ve been planning when this would be. Robert and Viktor agreed to come visit me in New York and I intend to come back to Berlin sometime soon.
I was to leave the next morning at 6 am, meaning that I’d have to be at the airport at 4 am, and would have to leave for the airport at 3 am. For that reason (and also because it is tradition for me to extend my last night as much as I can), I decided to pull an all-nighter. And Viktor, amazing as ever, decided to join me. I gave my last goodbyes to Justin and to my host family and then headed out with him to meet with Sophie and David one last time. Our plan was to go to Tresor, our favorite club. It had been my tradition that I always go to Tresor at the beginning and end of my stays in Berlin (last year, I literally went my first and last nights — my first night because I met a really cool guy on the plane who insisted I go out with him and his friends and the second night because I was saying goodbye to all of my Berlin friends and didn’t want to leave without one last rager).
We met up with Sophie and David, but were having such a great time talking that we decided to scrap our Tresor plan. So instead of going to the club, we ended up walking around Berlin at night. We probably walked for two hours along the river until we came to a nice spot by the Hauptbahnhof. We lied down with our legs dangling over the Spree (the river) and watched the stars. Serenity filled the air, even as it started to drizzle down on us. I kept watching the clock slowly creep towards 2 am, which I knew was when I had to leave. I fought and fought to keep time from passing, but eventually the clock struck and it was time to go. We began saying our goodbyes, when Sophie decided that she would drive me to the airport. In Mexico, when someone offers something that generous, you have to say no. It's impolite not to, no matter how much you would prefer it. And so I did. She insisted, but still I replied that I was embarrassed to keep her up so late just to take me to the airport. But then she said something which trumped my ingrained Mexican politesse: “it would be very rude to refuse my offer.” Faced with this impossible dilemma of impoliteness, I opted for the choice that I truly wanted, and let her drive me to the airport. But before we did, we first had to make it back to the house to leave Viktor off and for me to pick up my bags.
The taxi ride back evoked a familiar mix of excited happiness and longing sadness. Viktor and I talked the entire way, laughing and plotting our next visits. Eventually, we arrived. I woke up Justin just like he’d told me to and gave him one last goodbye. My partner in mischief. I walked out with Viktor to meet Sophie and gave him one last goodbye too.
Sophie and I sang the entire ride to the airport. We did karaoke and laughed and talked. And then that same thing happened as at the Yemeni restaurant and at the river bank and at basically every point during those last few days in Berlin: I watched the time slowly creep towards goodbye. The only difference was that this time it was the distance that I saw slowly drop to zero. There’s a saying in Mexico, “others leave and never say goodbye, but Mexicans say goodbye and never leave.” It felt just like that. Sophie and I kept saying goodbye, but neither seemed to want to leave. We hugged one last time and then I was off.