The Gentle Goodbye: Embracing Clean Endings In Life
2024 was the year I discovered the gentle goodbye. Goodbyes without regret. Goodbyes without pain. Clean goodbyes. Why was it so hard?
Listen to the audio reading of this post by me here.
The emotional weight of symbols in goodbye
I think it started when I let go of the uncomfortable bed I’d been using for ten years. After years of discomfort, it went in a flash. I realised in the minutes that it was being carried out of my house that I was searching in my mind for what I was supposed to be doing.
Should I take a photograph? Should I touch it once before it’s gone? Will I regret not doing so? Have I some residual feelings of rage that I should address now? And I realised there was nothing. So I wondered, do I actually have to feel this way? No, I’ve been taught that I’m supposed to, that’s all. I’ve been called cold, selfish, unfeeling, inhuman for carrying out clean goodbyes. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with other people’s dramas.
A bed is just a bed. Yes, it represents a lot of experiences, relationships and feelings. Those aren’t lost when the object that symbolises them exits.
Objects complicate goodbyes by tying them to emotions, memories, and societal expectations. However, acknowledging that objects are just representations—not the feelings themselves—helps us let go without regret.But yes, the relationships are shifted because we do place so much importance on the symbols. And it’s okay to grieve losses.
The grief goodbye
In 2024, I learnt of the death a few months earlier of someone I had once known. We had not been in each other’s lives for years but at one point we were close. That point was not typical, given it was in the throes of the second COVID-19 wave, surrounded as we were by the impending doom of humanity. I did not think I was going to get out of it alive.
They do say that relationships formed in times of duress don’t last. I don’t believe that’s the same as saying they were not meaningful. In that barren wasteland of a time, I eked out a reason to go on from the sight of my plants and some of these conversations. My last words to this person had been,
“You don’t value people. You don’t respect love.”
I did not end it with a curse even in my mind. And I believe that this person understood me enough to know that too. This is a hard thing to say and a hard thing to hear. Should I regret it? It was true. I was not trying to hurt this person; I was trying to stop hurting themselves. To no avail.
Goodbyes during grief are painful, but honesty in our last interactions can provide closure. It’s about witnessing someone’s journey without taking on their pain or regret as your own. I realise that people are on their journeys and sometimes will have crash landings. To regret saying those words would be to regret having been a witness to this person’s life. Isn’t that an uglier feeling? No, I will not hide from grief in the drama of regret.
The Allusionist podcast examines words, their history and journeys through languages, cultures and times. I found a lot of peace in episode 173. on ‘Death’.
Why regret is a waste of goodbye energy
And that is what regret is – drama to distract from the sting of loss. I think about all the things in my life that press on me whispering ‘Regret this. Regret that.’ The unspeakable betrayal that I cannot fully express since it involves outing someone’s sexuality. The still bleeding knife in the back embedded by someone who weaponises illness. The festering poison of male misbehaviour that society tells me is my fault, that I asked for it.
I could regret falling in love with who I did. I could regret caring about a cause enough to trust others who said they did. But how do I regret a world that colludes to violate me? I cannot regret being born. Regret often serves as a coping mechanism for grief, but choosing to process pain without blame allows for clean emotional exits.
So, I will not regret. Not my birth. And not my caring. One selfish person does not deserve the power of making me homophobic. One weak person does not get to erase my years of feminist struggles. When I acknowledge this, I find that they also do not deserve my tears or my rage or my redemption any more than they deserve my regret. What’s left? Nothing. Just goodbye.
Forgiveness, honesty & boundaries in goodbye
At the same time, I am frequently pressured to ‘forgive and forget’. I’m shamed for not doing so; called petty or cruel. This is not about forgiveness at all. It’s about other people’s discomfort with their misbehaviour. Forgiveness is often misinterpreted as absolving others; it’s more about understanding your own limits and walking away from what no longer serves you.
I ran into someone who remembered me from a decade ago and told her companion that I was the most honest person she had met, that she couldn’t understand it at the time but now she respected it. Another colleague told me years after I had quit that nobody in that organisation had heard the word NO until I walked into the room. An autistic friend told me,
“It’s not that you pressure people into confessionals. It is that your presence seems to suggest that the truth is just easier.”
This former friend in her last moments that were ugly, relented and said,
“The thing is you are a mirror. And sometimes that’s hard to look at.”
I am grateful for these insights, as hard as they felt at the time. I can’t change who I am and that is what dictates the energy I bring into a room, a conversation, a relationship. Boundaries are acts of self-preservation, not cruelty, and they allow for my goodbyes to remain clean and dignified.
People find it hard to face the things about themselves they can’t accept and maybe my existence forces them to. I can’t do anything about that. Maybe they are conveying the goodbye but not liking saying it. It’s not my place or my job to protect them from it. All I can do is accept how they want to deal with it. Some of them decide escapism is easier and the first tool in that arsenal is projecting the blame. This is my cue to say goodbye. Leave it all behind because none of it is mine to carry. Not even the reasons for the goodbye.
Dating with clarity: Making space for goodbye
I got back into dating in the last weeks of 2024. I’ve never been a serial dater. Even when Indians didn’t have socially acceptable words for it, it was important to me to be clear about my motives even if the possibilities were finite. “Because the good ones will run out” or “It’s the done thing” never cut it for me. The last two years of recovery from mental illness have had me questioning if my standards were too rigid. But now, I think those were the right decisions for me. No regrets.
The last time I was on a dating app was in 2019 (after a few years). At the time, I began with a resolution to not over-invest myself in strangers. I did not owe it to anyone to meet or even get on a call immediately. I didn’t even owe them apologetic explanations for wanting to exit. The common reaction to this is “Who told you to?” Well, everybody, my entire life has told me that I am not allowed to say no to men or protest when I’m held responsible for their misbehaviour.
Five years later, I decided that I could do this with the full awareness that nothing good might come from dating. And I feel better equipped to say nothing very bad is likely to come out either. I crafted a profile that was appealing without fawning and laid boundaries without being defensive. Neither of those would be conducive to the clean goodbyes I desire.
One of my early matches went faster than I had wanted (It showed me later how to enforce the pace I wanted). And unsurprisingly disapointment set in early and hard. I had stated my politics upfront; he said he was apolitical and that he’d never allow politics to enter his relationships. Yet, weeks later, he ended up yelling at me in the wee hours for my stance on languages and hanging up.
People in this country like to rush into romantic connections avoiding the idea that things could turn bad. Doesn’t it make more sense to make room for a goodbye if it is needed and have it be as considered as the hello? Relationships that start with clear boundaries allow for clean goodbyes if needed. Acknowledging the possibility of endings fosters healthier beginnings.
The art of the clean goodbye
I’ve had a few matches. I’ve closed out several. I have a better idea of what is good for me and if I’m finding myself off-kilter or just plain ‘bad’, it’s not worth it for me. A dating match is supposed to be a pleasurable exercise, not a laborious, anxiety-inducing one. I’m also feeling a lot easier about unmatching in clean ways. A lot of men don’t know how to make a conversation happen. I tell them politely that I don’t think we are a good fit for each other and I unmatch before theyhe can get ugly (men in this country do).
One man started baiting me by saying my hobbies disappointed him, then used a casteist slur when I told him about one of my activities, then gaslit me by saying I imagined all the toxicity. It made me very angry. But I knew letting him know that would only engage him in a power struggle. A few hours later, I pointed out what he had done and asked him if he thought this was either an attractive or appropriate way to behave on a dating app. His reply was frothing at the mouth (I imagine) as he told me he ‘didn’t have time for this shit on a dating app’. With that, he handed me my clean goodbye with a reason to unmatch and report.
In the past when I have spoken about instances like these (and there have been a lot – desi masculinity never disappoints), I get asked “Why do you spend so much time? You should just not care/ you should have abused him back/ you should have unmatched earlier.” They seem to think that these are my investments in other people. They are not. My consideration is investment in my emotions. It is also time I’m giving the other person to do better. I would not want to live with the regret of walking away from someone who make a single error. A goodbye is only clean when I feel I have nothing I want to carry away from it: no what-ifs, no open ends for reconcillation.
2024 was not just a year of goodbyes but of discovering peace in them. A goodbye isn’t about being cold or detached; it is about respecting the journey— my own and other people’s. Whether it’s letting go of an important symbol, grieving a loss, or ending a connection, a clean goodbye is an act of self-care and emotional clarity. Clean goodbyes reflect emotional maturity and a commitment to preserving your inner peace. And perhaps that’s the real art of a goodbye—not its finality but its ability to set us free.