#15: Send-Offs, So-Longs, and See-You-Laters: Documenting Your Goodbye Stories

Remember the smell of new corduroys, the anxiety of sleepovers away from home, or the exhilaration of the first day at a new school? These are the quintessential moments of September transitions we all encounter in our lives. In this episode, we delve into writing about the universal experiences of goodbyes and fresh starts, highlighting the emotional rollercoasters we ride and the significant legacies these moments leave behind. Join me, your host Melissa Ann Kitchen, as we revisit these poignant memories and learn how to capture them for future generations.

Who can forget the frenzied excitement of back-to-school shopping or the nerve-wracking first sleepover away from home’s comfort? We talk about taking a nostalgic look at these life-defining moments, as we discuss the importance of documenting these experiences, making the seemingly mundane details come alive in our stories. We also examine how to write about the emotional journey of letting go, and watching our loved ones venture into the world, being sure to highlight the unique challenges and rewards that accompany these transitions.

As we let our children spread their wings, it becomes vital to preserve these memories and experiences. Writing, we discover, can be a powerful medium to connect generations as well as a therapeutic tool to process the emotions associated with these transitions, We explore techniques to articulate our feelings and use our senses to narrate our stories, capturing the advice, conversations, and locations that made these moments so memorable. Let's honor these transitions together by weaving our personal stories into a tapestry of lessons learned, a lasting legacy we can pass on to future generations.

Read the related blog post here!

This group is for people who are in the process of writing their own personal stories to preserve their past for their future. It’s a place to come for story writing inspiration, weekly writing-related events and memes, and continued support from me and the other members.

Join like-minded people and get your stories down on paper for your future generations!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations. I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchum, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Preserve your Past podcast, and today we are doing a special episode. I feel like I start the podcast every time because every episode is a special episode, but this episode I actually do have my tissues ready. I have my glass of water. It's been a very busy past month or so, and so there has been a little bit of a pause in some of my episodes. I wanted to let you know that I'm back on schedule. We did have some big things going on at home, with some construction to the house and some bits of transitions for the family. So I am back and we're going to look at September, and the topic today is regarding the time of transition. That September can be right. September is often a universal time of transitions, and so today's episode is about the send-offs, the solongs and the CU-SUNs and how to document your stories of goodbyes. This post is dedicated to all of those of you out there who are sending your children, your loved ones, off to their next stage of life. Whether we're talking about going back to school, going into the military, whether it's one day, one week or even, in some instance, two years or more, we all have our own so long for now stories to tell, and our family's been going through a little bit of a so long for now story. So this one, for me, was very fitting and a perfect time for me to explore some of the things that come up for me when I think about so long for now stories in my own life. So some of these might be stories when we're doing the leaving right. So it could be when we were going away for the first time and doing those big first life lessons, and others are going to be stories we want to write about or record on paper of when we were being the ones left behind.

Speaker 1: 3:19

One of my favorite, favorite quotes from a song and it's one of my favorite songs by REM Leaving New York has some of the like hit me in the heart. Poignant lyrics on the topic of leaving. It's a very simple one liner that says it's easier to leave than to be left behind. And that is for any parent who's had to leave a child at daycare or watch your child leave for their you know time at college or for the military any of that. Whether you're watching them hop on the school bus for the first time or they're walking away single file after they've just sworn in and they're heading off to basic training right, that is like they got. It's easier to leave than to leave be left behind. Now I'm not saying I know we're going to talk about a bit about that being the lever to, because we have our own stories of when we, you know, ventured out to our own first times, but I'm going to say I am a little bit leaning towards the side of the being left behind today, as this is something we're currently going through with one of ours who will be leaning towards leaving, towards his next adventure, which we're all very excited about. But again, anyone who has watched their child do this or has had a family member do this, you know that that that quote does have truth to it.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So today's episode I wanted to talk about some examples of topics that you could use and including your powerful personal stories and explore how you could write about the times when you were the one leaving or you were the one being left behind watching your child or family member trend go on their next adventure right.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So when we're talking about the topics of you doing your leaving, if you were going to write about some of those stories, I would suggest you start exploring some of your memories around your first days of school. This is the perfect time of year to do it. I mean, we all have our own memories, some of them positive, some of them not so positive, but for me, whether it was elementary school, middle school, high school, I can go back and visually have my my first day of school memories. I loved buying new school supplies, so I could think about even stories of us going and doing back-to-school shopping as my own as a student myself, right as the child, and what that was like for me doing back-to school clothes shopping with my mom Growing up on Cape Cod. There was only so many stores that we could go to Back in the day. It was a lot more island-like living and we used to go off-cape those of you who live on the cape no, we go over the bridges and we go off-cape and we would go shopping up near my grandmother's or other places that more closer to Boston or off-cape, and so some of those adventures to stores that we didn't have back at home were really exciting.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Back-to-school shopping for me always brings back memories of going shopping with my mother, specifically to this one store that we used to go to in Braintree as I was getting a little bit older and we would and I even remember this from being younger and going to whatever store we went to, you know, looking for the deals, going around, trying on the clothes, bringing them back home, but having her bring in one bag at a time and kind of do it when my dad wasn't there, because it was kind of like you know, it was a little bit overwhelming to that amount of money I'm sure that they spent at the time for their budget on back-to-school shopping for three kids. Aside from those days, I even remember back to which is dating myself, but some of you can think about what were the kinds of clothes that were really sought after when you were going back to school. So I can go back to really younger childhood and remember when corduroy's and Levi's were really the thing to have. And when I go back in time, I remember going to the store in Orleans where we used to get our Levi's and I can tell you the smell, I can tell you the layout of the store, I can picture the colors. I remember going through the stacks of folded and how new corduroy's felt. The new Levi's just had such a nice soft feeling and looking at those fall colors of whether it was going to be forest green or brown or, you know, navy blue or tan, whatever those colors were. I just remember going through and feeling them and picking out which ones we were going to get for pants and then having to pick out the shirts that were going to go with it.

Speaker 1: 8:32

But talking about our stories and remembering, you know adding your senses when you think of those back-to-school stories, those first day of school stories, even aside from getting ready to go to school, what are some of those sensory things that you can add in and we'll talk about? Things, remind you and, before we close today, those things that I always suggest you add to your story. So, getting ready to go back to school we all could have lots of memories of. And then, what were those first days of school like? Do you remember where your locker was when you were in high school? Do you remember transitioning from one school to another school and what it felt like being in? You know, I can picture snack time, us going down to the basement, to the cafeteria and having our little snacks, which was a juice and cookies or a milk and cookies, and exactly what that felt like doing the walk and helping collect the, the nickels from everyone if you got to be the teacher's helper. So remembering some of those early school day memories and putting them down is actually really important because it's very, very, very different from my time to my kids time, so what it was like for me there. While there were differences, there's also similarities probably to them on how they felt and things they remembered. But I feel like sometimes those early memories and the transitions to middle school and high school, when you're kind of going through those puberty stages, have like really and strong, visceral memories that are very colorful and very, to me, very strong. So first days of schools, getting ready to school, those are, those are common ones.

Speaker 1: 10:22

I'd also have you think about going to your first sleepover. What was that like? That's another time where you were the one saying goodbye and leaving your parents. But what was that like for you to be going to your first sleepover, whether it was at a friend's house, whether it was you know a family member's house, your first time sleeping without your you know siblings, or without your parents, not in your bed? If you can remember what that was like, did you sleep through the night? So that's kind of another example of a going away story.

Speaker 1: 10:56

How about camping at a sleepover camp? Many of us go through you know different, whether it's a camp of a club that we're in or something for school, a field trip, that's a sleepover. There's going to be a certain time in every, most every child's life where they'll go away to camp. I can picture Girl Scout camp and doing sleepaway camp for Girl Scouts and being a camp counselor. But I also remember in fifth grade we had a big field trip that was a week long. That was at the National Seashore and every fifth grade class got to do this every single year and we would go out to the National Seashore on the edge of Cape Cod and Truro and we stayed in an old Coast Guard station on bunk beds. Again, the memories are so clear visually and even there we go.

Speaker 1: 11:59

We got a buddy joining us today and we got two of them back there. For those of you who are joining on YouTube, and you can see we've got our friends in the background helping me with. We've got Uno and we've got Daisy. For those of you on YouTube, today you get the back to the get the little behind the scenes of the visuals. For those of you who heard some rumbling, we do have a new friend joining us for a while. We have a Greyhound in addition to my Boston Terrier. So we have Uno, the Greyhound, who is here that's my son's dog and we have Daisy in the background. There was just a little shifting going on. Both of them are pretty much by our sides the whole time. So I'm sure from now on, if you join me on the YouTube's, you will see the two of them behind me for every single episode.

Speaker 1: 12:49

But so back to sorry for the interruption, back to that sleepover, first time sleeping over for me. I remember the bus rides there, I remember the smell of even the soap and the shampoo and, you know, each taking turns with that, the walks at night when we would bring our flashlights and walk the dunes and it was just a very memorable experience. And I was really lucky that after fifth grade, when we got to be in high school, they did have a repeat with older students for biology field trips. So we did the same exact trip at the same location but looked at things from a higher scientific perspective and also just looking at how we interacted as you know, boys and girls in that kind of a trip between those ages is really funny too. So going on your first sleepover or away camp Another big one for many people that that went away to college is that experience of starting college, preparing for going right, and then the actual, you know, starting being like dropped off.

Speaker 1: 14:06

I could picture being dropped off. For me that time was already a very interesting time because we had lost my mom. April of my senior year I decided to still continue going to school that fall and so my dad did bring me, we moved in and I remember him dropping me off and that I did make some friends and we were getting ready to do like some activities as a whole floor but my roommate had not come yet. So it was like everyone had roommates and my roommate wasn't there that first night. So it was kind of weird and spacious but also exciting and independent for the first time and I just I remember what the room looked like, how it felt.

Speaker 1: 14:52

I remember the music I listened to. So, as you're thinking of your stories, thinking about some of that too, like what was, what were you listening to? As we get older and even as we're younger, there's certain music that we can always tie into our stories. That might be ones that really bring us back to those times. And for me, going away to college was playing till Tuesday. Pat Benatar was I had been listening to for a long time before that I remember listening to yeah, till Tuesday was my over and over playlist band that I listened to over and over Amy man, still to this day one of my favorites.

Speaker 1: 15:36

And, yeah, that brings me right back to that age and that stage in my life and for those who didn't go to college or maybe after you went to college, moving away from home that first time, even after going away to school, it was a big experience for me because one of the first things I did early on in my life was leave the state with my now husband and move for my first teaching job across the country from Massachusetts out to Las Vegas. And so moving away from home is another experience that we can find lots of stories in the packing, the preparing. How did we get there? If it's for a job, how did we get the job wasn't an easy get you know, did we think we weren't going to get it? I can go back and remember exactly where I was when I was interviewing on the phone and the experience of flying out for my interview and then the experience of waving to my family who I really still believe didn't think we were officially going until I did that.

Speaker 1: 16:37

It was pretty much for me a two week turnaround from when I got the job and when I had to report. When I had to do that. I had to report when I had to report, and so that I have a lot of yeah, visual memories of the drive across country, of the leaving of the family, of the excitement of that adventure that my husband and I had. We ended up living there for six years, so it was like the beginning of our life as you know a young couple and it turned out to be where we had our first child. So lots of memories of that first moving away from home trip that ended up being our, our beginning of being young adults together. That was really cool experience and there's a lot of special memories I have, not only from the move but from those years of living there where we had our first house and our first well, first apartment together there was, and then our first house and friends that we made together and things that we did that were adventures and, of course, our first son. So these are stories from our perspective that we can take through all different stages.

Speaker 1: 19:43

The next piece of this is for those of you going through the being the one saying goodbyes to your children or loved ones who are starting their own first adventures Away, away from the house, away from home, away out of state, out of town, out of the country. We're going through some big changes in the kitchen household now, and so it always brings up those for me Anytime I watch my kids make a big transition. It kind of brings me back to even remembering when it was like the first day of daycare or the first day of kindergarten or middle school or high school or you know, when our son did finished basic training, which has been several years from now. But it's still that. The feeling in my throat that I got when we, when we he did his swearing in and we walked him, watched him walk away for the last time for that not the last time ever, luckily, but for the last time from that trip was crazy. But you do sometimes feel like it's going to be the last time and that's why these stories are really important to also like get down on paper.

Speaker 1: 20:57

I know, and you know I always do an associated blog post to our podcast, but in the blog post I even note that while we're writing our stories for commemorating, for remembering, these are the stories that I think there's also a good reason why they can be therapeutic when we write them down, because there's gonna be some of these memories and some of these transitions that might have been a little hard. So writing them down and digging into your memories is sometimes therapeutic when we can put these memories down on paper. But so on this topic of being the one who's sending away, doing a until later for a child or a loved one, there's topics that are pretty straightforward, like a first day of daycare or first day of school. But in remembering it could be kindergarten and it could be middle school and it could be high school, because each of those transitions for a parent or a family member are gonna feel different because you're watching your child go through a different stage. Then it could be the end of school countdown, like the end of high school countdown to their next stage, whether that is college or whether that is the military. That countdown of high school is something that man. I am so glad I do not have to do again.

Speaker 1: 22:19

It was really hard for me. I realized this past month, as we'd been getting ready for our son to go away again, that anticipation of saying goodbye is really hard for me. That is my hardest part. I can tell you that once I say goodbye and send them on their way, I know in my heart when the adventure is really gonna be amazing for them, that I can then lean into that, but the anticipation of letting them go for me is really hard. So for me the end of high school countdown was torture for both of my boys.

Speaker 1: 22:53

It was really hard for my first son because it was the first time I was doing it and I realized that I was kind of associating it with the fact that I had lost my mom months before I went to college and then my dad while I was still in college. So for me I think in my mind parenting didn't happen after that right, those stages of college or going away after high school, kind of what was the role of a parent after that? I didn't have that firsthand, even though I knew my in-laws were super involved with my husband and I and the raising of our children and everything like that. I had them. But in my mind I really think that when I was going through the end of high school countdown with my boys, it was even harder for me because I didn't know what that transition looked like with how my parents could have been involved, because I literally didn't have that. So that is something else. Like I was saying, sometimes these goodbyes are hard and we can learn a lot about ourselves in that.

Speaker 1: 23:57

And when I was writing about this for the blog. I did mention a story of one of my teacher friends talking to me about when I was talking to her about I was having a really hard time. It was my first son and he was going to Boston for college. And she said to me Melissa, it's gonna be a gift, it's gonna be amazing. You're gonna be able to go on all these adventures through your child's eyes, seeing the world again Like adult children that are starting their own lives, are moving to places you get to visit where they're at. You get to see them in their world, you get to see the world through their eyes and sharing these adventures. And I had never thought about it that way because I didn't have my parents sharing in my adventures.

Speaker 1: 24:51

And so I can tell you, for anyone who's on the beginning end of like watching their kids go to daycare or kindergarten hasn't yet gotten to the going away of the older children. It is so true. I love being a mom of grown young men. I love being part of their adventures. I love enjoying their company. I wish they weren't so far away. I say that all the time. They're finally at this point where they're really good, where they're at, and I just wish they were closer, but I also love the adventures they get to go on. So, while some of these can be challenging for us of letting go, yeah, there's a lot of experience we can get from, you know, going through those transitions with our family members or with our adult children or siblings or whoever it is loved ones that we're sending to their next adventure.

Speaker 1: 25:54

So another topic aside from the high school countdown is sending someone off to the military for basic training or for an extended duty away. What is that like? As they prepare for that, how are you staying connected to them? It's a little bit different than college. Sometimes the communication is a little more restricted, but so those are times and the feelings of if they are going to be in spots that are dangerous, add a little bit of a different flair to just the challenge of just letting our kids leave home anyways. So I think anyone who's going through that, sharing their sides of it and the even recording the adventures and the places and your memories of that, would be really sweet and great for not only your kids to have that are going away, but also the family in the future.

Speaker 1: 26:59

So this kind of brings a bell for me because we are sending our son off overseas to a spot where my father actually had been when he was in the Army, and I am looking for stories and information so that I can see where exactly my father was stationed when he was there, so that if my son is in the area he might be able to be close by or see some of the things that my father saw. It's just those connections again of why I do this. What my passion is is like pulling the being that bridge right, taking the past into the present and the present and connecting those two generations, especially since my father and my son had not met. But they have similarities and I would love. You know, you get excited when your children are doing something exciting and it's hard when you can't go back to the person in the past who's no longer with you and say, hey, look at you know, isn't that cool and we could have had all these conversations. So I've been talking with family members and doing some of my own research to kind of connect that. So that's another way that when we have kids sending, when we're sending kids off, that writing down those stories for Ben's children or Ben's grandchildren will be really cool because then they can see from the things that maybe he doesn't have time to write down, some of his experiences of where he was and and what we knew and and you know, things that we witnessed from our side that can kind of commemorate those experiences and document his time away.

Speaker 1: 28:43

So other ways of topics I should say to continue back on that list is, aside from the military, anyone who's going to be going and leaving home for the first time, whether they're leaving the town, they're leaving a state or they're leaving the country. So those are a variety of topics of like seeing a loved one or child as they transition away. I want to say here too that I talk about goodbye stories and I know that when I even use the word transition, I know that there's lots of goodbye stories that I did not mention on these lists because I'm focusing on these more traditional send-offs. But I do have friends who have had to say goodbye to their children or their parents and their loved ones even in the past year, and I myself have had my share of goodbyes and send-offs that were not mentioned here, but they are covered in other posts and there are other ways that I've talked about looking at how writing can specifically help us with processing our grief. So I'll link that post in the show notes, also because I want you all to be able to know that I honor that, that having a child that you can have, a child that you can be able to let go into the world, is something that's an honor that I cherished, especially where I didn't have that with my parents and didn't have my parents to be able to do that for me. It's not something that I take lightly. So while it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, I would not have traded that for anything. I consider it an honor that I was allowed to be able to do that. So again, to those of you out there, you know I have you in my heart and I am grateful for the tough goodbyes that I've had to go through.

Speaker 1: 30:58

Next thing, while we've talked now about topics and we've talked about why those topics would be helpful, how they could even be therapeutic, I want you to remember now as I kind of always do, going into some of the tips that I have for you for writing and how to get into the nitty gritty of writing good stories when you're writing about these memories. So I want you to make sure, when you're writing these, that you're thinking about sharing how you were feeling each step of the way. Again, if you're doing this and you're brainstorming brainstorming either with a story map or in bullet format or you know. However, you're making lists I want you to think about even a timeline. How are you feeling at each step of that transition and really get into whether you were the one that was, you know, in the dorm room by yourself without the roommate, or you were the one watching your child walk away at the airport. How are you feeling? And write down those feelings and what the thoughts were around those feelings.

Speaker 1: 32:07

I'd also advise you and encourage you to use your senses to describe that setting. In that event, what was the error in the room? Like you know, again, I go back to that dorm room and it had the high ceilings and I had a fan in the window because it was summer. You know, it was the end of summer and it was still hot and we were in this like tower dormitory, and so I remember it being hot, but I remember the lighting being low lighting because the sun was setting on the other side, and so there's specific even the lighting and the feeling of the air that I can remember.

Speaker 1: 32:42

It's often in these unique moments that we have perfect snapshots that are burned into our minds from those memories. So share those visions in your writing and also share the conversations that you remember, even if you don't know the words for words. What were the things that people told you in those moments? What was the advice that people gave you? What were the phone calls you had while you were away? Maybe what were the letters you received? So things that you remember, the conversations with your first time you met your roommate or a friend, or what you remember in preparation to leaving. So conversations and any of that, even if it's not true dialogue form, is still going to add humanity and specific nitty gritty meat to your stories.

Speaker 1: 33:37

If there are specific locations that it happened at remember, I always talk about adding addresses and giving the details on the location. So for me, if I was writing a story about my first night away in college, I would write about where the college was, what the name of the dorm was, what the floor I lived on was. I was able to go back to my first college and do a tour of the college as a guidance counselor several years ago and let me tell you, when they gave us a tour of the dorm that I had been at and got to see, like the floor and the rooms of friends, it was kind of a weird. Some of it had improved and some of it actually looked exactly the same, which was a little unsettling. But those locations if for some reason my kids wanted to go back in time and drive through I want to see things in my parents. I talk about that a lot. Even just going on a tour, a visual tour of seeing where the stories happen, is really cool and that's what we're talking about. Even as I talk about my son going away, I want those addresses or those locations of where my dad was when he was overseas.

Speaker 1: 34:51

And again, finally, the tiny details that bring you back to the moment. So any kind of specifics that make it yours, that make it real, that encompass all of the things I talked about, like the conversations and your senses and things, but little details to kind of anchor those stories will always make them feel more real to you and to the people that are listening to your stories. These special stories, remember, are wonderful keepsakes and they're lovely to look back on as you're missing the person or welcoming them home. The journey of leaving the nest is a universal journey and the reality is that no matter the age whether they're teeny and in kindergarten or daycare, or they're adults that the experience is worth documenting and remembering from both sides. And again, I'd even say this is one of those times where these stories and writing of these stories can be very therapeutic. I know that transitions can be challenging and I want you to encourage you to see them as a sign of growth and expansion that can help you celebrate them and, as with all of our life stories, writing them down, commemorating them, can help us make meaning of the lessons we learned along the way.

Speaker 1: 36:25

So I encourage you to share your stories, either if you want to send me an email at Melissa, at Melissa and kitchencom, or find me on at Melissa loves history on Facebook or Instagram, and let me know your stories, even photos of when you were going away, maybe first day school photos of you or your children, or some of these so long see you soon stories. I would love to hear from you. So please reach out and until next time, here's to writing your powerful personal stories. Wasn't that a fun episode. I enjoyed our conversation so much and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helped share the mission of preserving the past with stories. Want more tips, tools and inspiration? Head over to Melissa and kitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.