Saying Goodbye
Li June Han (MA, AThR)
Singapore
Li June Han is the founder of A Little Blue Studio, where she collaborates with artists and mental health professionals to bring art to the community, fostering creative expression, emotional growth and social diversity. She is concurrently an art therapist at the University of Social Sciences, Singapore, where she is part of an inter-disciplinary team at the University Counselling Centre. Li June’s art practice is inspired by memories and experiences of people and places. Writing about the travails of her life and sharing her art connects her with people from all walks of life.
Saying goodbye and surviving separations can be one of the hardest things to do. In my own life and my walk with clients as an art therapist, the topic of loss - grieving loved ones, coping with broken relationships and nursing missed opportunities, flood our conversations on pain and regret. The intense emotions can remain unresolved for a long time, remaining raw but hidden as they melt into the unconscious. However, they are felt acutely and carried every single day. We wish for better closure, that we had done more, and if only we had said proper goodbyes. The following prose and artwork are from my journey seeking closure to the separations that have made deep imprints in my life.
I am bad at saying goodbyes.
It makes me clam up, rescind into myself and go under. Unable to fathom what lies ahead, I doggedly create new scenarios, designed to plaster over what I have lost, convinced that I can recreate an even better future. If I run fast enough, the loss certainly will have no way of catching up on me, for I will be already light years ahead, having moved on.
Goodbye, digital illustration, 2022
When I sit alone in darker hours, when I wake up with pangs of sadness, I realize for acute moments that what is lost will not return. I cry and sob in great pain. The new rabbit that I bought certainly does not and will not replace the old one. The grief for those so dear who passed or left, grips and gnaws.
That’s who I am, someone who plasters, replaces, and tries to erase what is painful to bear. Someone who stuffs things so deep that I forget what I left in the abyss of my inner closet.
Months, years, decades later this forgotten menagerie of closet items and secrets begin to spill out, laying thread bear what should have been incinerated with the passage of time. As I braced myself to pick up these items, they appear just as they were - where and when I left them.
With more passage of time, the dust filters and dulls the pain slightly. Though the images that flood my eyes and mind remain lucid like a film just played a while ago. I give in to the throbbing impulse to open the closet of emotions and allow some to float above the surface. Without which it’s hard to breathe. Unlocking what is buried can be liberating when I am finally ready to see things for what they truly are.
The guilt, fear, regret, unforgiveness that has made me burrow deep is finally given the light of day. To be treated with a dose of self-compassion, empathy, and confession of remorse. It’s okay to say goodbye. I have tried my best, put in everything I knew at the time. Relationships will hurt – betrayals are lessons in loyalty. People leave when they complete their life missions. We part ways to find better destinies. I am not solely responsible for all the things gone wrong.
I don’t have to run, hide and punish myself. I can stay, I can be honest, I can say “Sorry, I love you, I miss you”.
I can say goodbye.