July is the month we say goodbye to writers who are retiring or moving on to new adventures, and this is Susannah’s last post. She has been writing with us since August 2020.
I’ve never been good at goodbyes. My heart has a good thing going, it has settled into a comfortable groove, and suddenly the groove comes grinding to a halt. And my emotional coping mechanisms implode. And this post is goodbye.
Movies about strong emotions help me to think through my experiences. And this is a hodge-podge of many goodbyes:
Near the beginning of the movie Quest for Camelot, the main character’s father leaves for his stint as a knight of Sir Arthur’s round table. She wants more than anything to go with her father, to be a knight like he is, and not to be left behind. There is a feeling of being left behind here: the rest of the writers will move forward, writing posts and receiving the comments and praise of the viewers. I will lose my place among the ranks of young professionals scrambling to meet my posting deadline with some half-assed ideas formulating as I type.
Then there’s a goodbye towards a new crush. You just spent the evening talking by the pool at a party or had a successful first date wandering around Horrocks Market, and the time comes to say goodbye. You have each other’s numbers, and as you walk towards your respective tan cars from 2010, there is a vulnerability. As you go your separate ways from Prince Cornelius, you wonder if he will actually meet you at the Veil of the Fairies. As you drive away listening to an old mix CD, you wonder if they will actually text you back. There is some vulnerability to this goodbye, a cutting off from the safety of the post calvin audience. Maybe I will publish my writing again someday, but it probably won’t be for an audience that has grown to know me and shares so many things about my upbringing. I’m leaving a familiar harbor for an unfamiliar sea.
And when I am out there drifting on the waves, I will remember the things that I learned from my time writing here. At the end of the movie Lady Bird is one of the more gut-wrenching goodbyes I have seen in a film. Lady Bird and her mom are no longer speaking because of a disagreement about her college decision. When she actually flies across the country to attend college in New York City, her dad smuggles multiple iterations of a letter that her mother wrote into her suitcase. I have done the whole “move to New York City on a whim” thing, and it still makes me cry every time. It includes the line “I’m amazed by you. You are so smart and beautiful and funny and I don’t think that you know I think that.”
This is the bittersweet goodbye of a teenager whose relationship was warped by the stress of adolescence. A teenager who didn’t realize how much she loved her home of Sacramento until she left.
I hope to take this sort of goodbye with me. I am leaving a community that was a challenge for me and it was full of safe and loving feedback from family and former colleagues. I have a little bit of the pride of a teen who is shaking the dust off her shoes as she goes away to college. But I will miss the post calvin, with its familiar faces and simple layout. Someday I will look back on its dusty roads and mediocre milkshakes with a deep nostalgia.

Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).
Farewell Susannah. Thank you for lending us your voice each month. You will be missed!
Going to miss having a fellow teacher around here! Thanks for your vulnerability, and best wishes on where you go from here 🙂
Thanks for this heartfelt farewell, Susannah! And all the best for what’s next. (P.S. Your sailing metaphor makes me think of some of my favorite lines from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets: “Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging; / You are not those who saw the harbour / Receding, or those who will disembark.”)
I also hate goodbyes. you also made me think of the movies I like to watch when I need the tears to flow. Beautifully written and inspiring. Best wishes on your next adventure!!