We rehearse goodbyes and still get them wrong. Is there such a thing as perfect parting words?

We spend our lives saying goodbye, thinking that we’ve mastered it.

And yet, each one still finds a way to unravel us.

Looking back at my own goodbyes, some were a rush of emotional text messages, because it was all too sudden. I am half-embarrassed, because they seem like a rushed tangle of words, with probably wrong grammar.

What would they be thinking, I often wonder. 

With others, I chose my words carefully, afraid of going overboard with emotion. But then, those words seemed to run short. A few words and emoticons don't make up for years of familiarity and routine.

And with a precious few, I managed to be with them in person and we were just quiet, because we understood.

Why are goodbyes so hard, and why are the words so deeply knotted within us? Sometimes, we think we’re well-prepared for it, so we would have been rehearsed it several times. And yet, when it finally comes down to it, the words feel pale and lifeless. In times like these, I often think of the AA Milne Winnie The Pooh quote, hoping it gives me some relief, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

That’s lovely, I think, but I still wish saying goodbyes were easier. 

Or you know, there were the right amount of words to communicate your feelings, be it a toxic friendship ending, or a close friend leaving town for good and the worry you might not see them again, or not working with a colleague whose presence you are so used to, even if you didn’t always interact with them. 

When you say goodbye to people, you’re also saying farewell to the sense routine they brought into your life.

Looking for the perfect goodbye 

There’s so much emotional heaviness surrounding parting words. We’re hoping for closure in those final words, but as Leena Murthi, a Dubai-based psychologist explains, “Closure doesn’t come from the perfect phrase. You have to create it over time, through acceptance, introspection and healing.”

Perhaps, that’s why people try rehearsing it for days, and weeks, that is, when they know the inevitable is to come. They will mentally script conversations, because they’re not just preparing for a farewell. “We’re trying to stay steady in the face of something unstable: a person leaving, a job ending, a chapter closing. It’s how you try keep control of the uncontrollable,” she says. 

It’s a hope that comes from glossy films, which show magical closure in a few words of a farewell. We really want to wrap something up neatly, calmly so that it won’t sting us later. You know, something tidy, poetic and final. Yet, this is real life and there’s no such symmetry. “You can still try to go with what you’ve rehearsed, but truly, the inevitable is still so unknown. No amount of preparation really steels you for that moment of saying goodbye, parting ways. Sometimes, we just cry, get lost in the semantics, and yet, that messiness might be more honest than what you had planned,” says Murthi. Your emotions overwhelm you. 

Some say too little. Others say too much. And it won’t ever be enough. 

The least that you can hope for in a goodbye is not a perfect phrase, but the emotional safety to let go. And if it’s only a physical proximity that’s ending, then you can cherish the hope that as painful as it is, the goodbye is more of a I’ll-see-you-again.

Not every goodbye gives you a chance to speak

Some happen so suddenly, like a job termination or a breakup. Others quietly fade away, like a friendship. You don’t even know when you had a wordless goodbye. As Charlotte Wilson, a clinical psychologist explains, we start saying goodbye after the moment has passed. We scramble to seize a moment that doesn’t exist anymore. 

We look for words; we fumble. Sometimes it’s not because we expect a do-over. It’s because we need some form of emotional resolution. You get trapped in a psychological loop as the psychologists explain. Your brain keeps replaying it, trying to make sense of the absence. “And so, you keep going over the imaginary goodbye, which you think is better than the real one,” says Murthi.

Do we ever get better at goodbyes?

There’s really no such thing as getting better at goodbyes. All you can do is be honest—and stay present. Sometimes, it's in that final unscripted moment, just before parting, that your truest feelings surface, says Murthi. “We spend so much time trying to make it profound in our heads that we lose touch with the actual moment. And when it doesn’t unfold the way we imagined, we’re left grappling with guilt—I should have said this. I should have done that. But life doesn’t come with a script or emotional rulebook. You just have to meet the moment with as much honesty as you can—and not over-edit it,” she says.

Write it down, if you need to. Whisper it to the wind. Sometimes, the person who most needs to hear your goodbye is you.