Back in the good ol’ days of Anthro Theory class, we’d often talk about “making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.” As you can see from this image I saw in Last Night’s Reading, the concept also appears in other fields of study. Then again, I once wrote a whole creative nonfiction final about how the genre was like literary anthropology. The categories blur.

I especially enjoy the latter part of phrase–making the familiar strange. I’ve been known to, out of the blue, say things like: “Have you ever really thought about babies?” (Seriously, have you??) The world we live in is a strange place.

There isn’t anything all that strange about leaving. We’ve all been though the process, and we’ve all probably been through a kind of leaving that manifests a significant life change. There are the different styles–deeply emotional, short and sweet, or even ghosting–but that makes sense. People have different personalities and preferences; sometimes people need an emotional purge or a defense mechanism. Sometimes it’s just about ease or logistics.

When does leaving actually feel like leaving?

What I have been finding strange lately is when leaving really feels like leaving and when it doesn’t. What weirdly makes a goodbye emotional….or not. And how, in the world of today, it’s difficult to really feel like you’re leaving leaving.

Now what do I mean by this?

I think that much of it comes down to the internet, and the fact that I and people my age are very active in two social realms, sometimes (often?) to the point where we enact two distinct selves. So while one self is moving thousands of miles away to an entirely different area of the world, another self isn’t going anywhere. This has created some interesting dynamics for me when it comes to goodbyes.

Since most of my friends fall within the very online-networked world of lindy hop dancers, I’ve felt like I’m leaving, but I’m not really leaving. Partially because we’re so connected via the internet, partially because we’re used to developing seemingly fast, very-close friendships with people at dance events we travel to (because we have this thing in common that we love) and then not seeing them again for months. It’s part of the lifestyle. In some ways, this is a good thing. Nothing much has to change; it’s just par for the course. I’ll miss dancing and chatting with people that I’m used to seeing every week, but it’s a different level of relationship, one where people flow in and out and new dancers come. I imagine that even if people miss me they will get used to my not being there relatively quickly, especially since I’ve been in and out of Philadelphia since the summer after my freshman year of college.

Yet at the same time something about the ease with which I can leave worries me. It’s something I often fret about with respect to dancing (and I imagine it’s the same way with other highly networked hobbies or social groups)–that I’m only managing to scratch the surface of friendship, even when I try to get to know people on a deeper level. I start to realize its threadbareness when there are people I do get to know better in person. Interacting in passing at a dance or on the internet doesn’t mean all that much in comparison. Sometimes I forget how real friends can force you to re-examine both yourself and the world, how they affect your thought processes, how they change you. Then leaving starts to feel like forging ahead with part of yourself while another part keeps lagging behind.

Online Social Networking and The Real World

Sometimes I forget that the internet is of the real world but not the real world. That I can know so many things about a person–what that person likes and how they feel and what they do–but not actually know them at all. It almost makes me want to forgo it, but then I’d be really leaving. Leaving wholly. You know when you look at old year books, and you’re think ‘oh yeah, I totally forget about this person and this person.’ I would become that forgotten person.

But for a person in my position, leaving all of my social networks on the internet would kind of be like Thoreau going off to live at Walden. There isn’t anything inherently more noble or natural about swearing off the social networks of the internet, because the internet has become an integral part of our world. To deny it would be, in a paradoxical way, to deny a part of reality (paradoxical because yes, I know I just said that the internet wasn’t the real world; however it is part of the real world by being a reflection and partial representation of it.)

So what are we left with?
1) In today’s world, leaving isn’t as world-shattering as it used to be, because there are so many easy ways to stay connected; so easy, in fact, those can be some of the main ways we interact with people that we live fairly close to.
2) Leaving also isn’t as world-shattering because it is a millennial norm. Many people start to feel like they’re missing out on something if they stick around in one place for too long.
3) Leaving can be emotional and in many ways I think we should strive to make it authentically so. We should maybe worry if it isn’t so. What does that say about our relationships? Are we denying ourselves deeper levels of connection?

Leaving can be a kind of sweet sorrow if we are excited for what is ahead but also if we leave something meaningful behind. It’s the kind of emotion one would describe as a dull ache, an ineffable longing. It’s looking forward while part of you can’t help but hang back, at least for awhile. It’s the kind of emotion that can make us feel alive, truly human.

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