An Intricate Look at the Airport Goodbye

By Caleigh Horan

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"Wish me luck, I know you'll think I need it." -The Avett Brothers


​What makes some goodbyes more significant than others? It’s a word I say daily, to my roommates as I leave for class or as I hang up the phone with my parents, but often, the weight of this word makes my heart feel like a lead balloon. This feeling is the airport goodbye.

The airport goodbye has evolved over the past few decades. What was once a painstakingly long and drawn out process of waiting with your one-way destination-ed partner in their terminal has been truncated to a mere drop-off zone, one that you must shuffle through with haste or risk a brisk whistle from airport security. This song captures, in slow motion, all of the feelings surrounding an imminent goodbye: the anticipation, the heartache, the longing, without saying a thing, simply suggesting “I know. I know.”

How many times in your life have you wished there was more you could say, more you could do, just to keep someone around a little bit longer? I know. I know. I think that’s what is so difficult about the airport goodbye. You know the person you are letting go will not be the same once you meet again, and that is scary and sad because it never feels good to consciously drift from someone you care about.

But have you ever considered that maybe you’ll be different too? It’s intimidating to tackle the world solo, but it’s often necessary to grow as an individual. It may be lonely at times, but The Avett Brothers are here to remind us that, “Everyone I know out here is lonely, even those that have someone to lie beside them at night”. These are universal feelings that demand to be felt, and this song is an honest tribute to the beauty underlying these feelings.

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