By Andrea Appelwick
Exactly one week ago I said good-bye to all the Coffee Masters of the Class of 2016. And I couldn’t write this post then because Friday June 17th 2016 was the last time we were all together, with all of us in the same place. And there were too many emotions to write a proper good-bye.
Now, 7 days later, with the Class of 2016 either back home in their country of origin or travelling around Europe for a quick summer break, I’ve had time to digest all my feelings and chose my words carefully to express what I felt on our last night together as the Class of 2016.
There is no perfect way to execute a goodbye. Because when we are saying goodbye to someone, we’re not just talking to them, we’re talking to the person that we are at this very moment. We know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that we will never be in this exact same spot again. We will never see the world the same way, and closing the door on someone’s chapter means committing it officially to memory — that it’s no longer an organic, living thing.
A few from the Class of 2016 might come back some day to their old Master Classroom, yes, but nothing would be quite the same. And that’s a good thing. It’s always tinged with a certain sadness when groups of friends remain exactly the same over the course of a few years, but a selfish part of every person wants people to repeat themselves out of nostalgia. You want to put everything into a little music box and open it up at will, seeing the tiny dancers spinning just the way they were when you left them.
“I’m going to miss you” I told each of them on our last night together “and I’m glad I had the opportunity to know you.”
Some got watery eyes. Others just hugged me harder. We weren’t used to speaking so candidly about the way we felt towards each other. They all told me some sweet things, and I felt a catch at the back of my throat. “Don’t cry,” I thought, “It’s going to be weird if you cry, and tonight is about having fun.”
But of course I cried… memories were squeezing out of my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
That night I said my 107th good-bye. That’s the number of all the Coffee Masters so far since its beginning in 2011. I’ve been through this wrenching moment six times: saying good-bye is difficult for me because it’s always harder to be left behind than the one to leave.
On our last night together with the Class of 2016, I told certain people what I’ve always thought of them, told them that I believed in them, told them to work with passion because it will feel like not working at all. Goodbyes are a certain brush with mortality, the feeling of time running out that leads you to say everything you’ve ever considered too uncomfortably honest.
When our good-bye party was over, I wondered how many of these people I would really never see again. And while I knew, on some level, that many of the goodbyes I had said were permanent ones, I thought it better to assume that I would see all of them again someday, even in the same room. It seemed a better way to live life, imagining that your next reunion is just around the corner, and that your story will never have to come to a real ending.
So, until we meet again, to all my Coffee Masters, I say Godspeed!
Now, 7 days later, with the Class of 2016 either back home in their country of origin or travelling around Europe for a quick summer break, I’ve had time to digest all my feelings and chose my words carefully to express what I felt on our last night together as the Class of 2016.
There is no perfect way to execute a goodbye. Because when we are saying goodbye to someone, we’re not just talking to them, we’re talking to the person that we are at this very moment. We know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that we will never be in this exact same spot again. We will never see the world the same way, and closing the door on someone’s chapter means committing it officially to memory — that it’s no longer an organic, living thing.
A few from the Class of 2016 might come back some day to their old Master Classroom, yes, but nothing would be quite the same. And that’s a good thing. It’s always tinged with a certain sadness when groups of friends remain exactly the same over the course of a few years, but a selfish part of every person wants people to repeat themselves out of nostalgia. You want to put everything into a little music box and open it up at will, seeing the tiny dancers spinning just the way they were when you left them.
“I’m going to miss you” I told each of them on our last night together “and I’m glad I had the opportunity to know you.”
Some got watery eyes. Others just hugged me harder. We weren’t used to speaking so candidly about the way we felt towards each other. They all told me some sweet things, and I felt a catch at the back of my throat. “Don’t cry,” I thought, “It’s going to be weird if you cry, and tonight is about having fun.”
But of course I cried… memories were squeezing out of my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
That night I said my 107th good-bye. That’s the number of all the Coffee Masters so far since its beginning in 2011. I’ve been through this wrenching moment six times: saying good-bye is difficult for me because it’s always harder to be left behind than the one to leave.
On our last night together with the Class of 2016, I told certain people what I’ve always thought of them, told them that I believed in them, told them to work with passion because it will feel like not working at all. Goodbyes are a certain brush with mortality, the feeling of time running out that leads you to say everything you’ve ever considered too uncomfortably honest.
When our good-bye party was over, I wondered how many of these people I would really never see again. And while I knew, on some level, that many of the goodbyes I had said were permanent ones, I thought it better to assume that I would see all of them again someday, even in the same room. It seemed a better way to live life, imagining that your next reunion is just around the corner, and that your story will never have to come to a real ending.
So, until we meet again, to all my Coffee Masters, I say Godspeed!