This is my last post of 2024, so it only seems right to make it about farewells. Once again, this is a Bibliotheca theme post. This time, I'm going to extend it past fashion topics and into the realm that got me into this mess to begin with: conventions.
I wasn't too sure about suggesting this theme; it's an uncharacteristically serious choice for a fool like myself. I'm pretty darn good at goodbyes, but this topic extends well past a good old "see ya later!"
Farewells have a certain solidity to them, a finality not found in a simple goodbye. After all, hoping that someone fares well on their continuing journey implies that their path must separate from yours significantly, whereas a goodbye is a parting that might last only hours. With as broad a selection as English has, choosing the right send-off is a prediction.
When I was new to conventions, I thought of them as completely ephemeral-- the panels end, the vendors pack up, the carriages turn into pumpkins, and I'd stand there with my enamel pin haul as my Cinderella glass slipper, the only proof that my whirlwind weekend had even occurred. Every interaction was as good as a final farewell; there was no predicting whether this glittering fairyland would ever take me back.
Conventions felt entirely unanchored from reality and its consequences, and I was a teenager. Obviously, I was a little shit. Yelling (complimentary) at cosplayers, dancing despite normally hating it, starting conversations with people thrice my age or older-- I did anything I wanted because none of it was really real. Every interaction was isolated.
That finality could only exist before I got hooked on social media. Instead of having a million different webpages to check in on, I now had all the denizens of weeaboo Neverland in my laptop on the one or two big websites where my friends all live. Suddenly, conventions weren't a dissolving dream, but rather a recurring reunion with beloved friends. Farewells happened still, but they were tempered by the guarantee that we'd mostly keep in touch virtually.
This changed the character of my convention-going life. I stopped feeling like a shipwrecked newcomer to an alien realm and began to feel like a regular visitor. I lost a little bit of my impulsivity (though not much) and started working towards building long-term relationships within the con ecosystem.
When you're a teenager, waiting a year between cons is longer than forever. After all, teens are still living a turbulent world of firsts, and the discoveries of one year might completely reinvent someone the next. You might be sure that the con will be there, but it won't be the same you that's attending. Every year has its own character, and every goodbye is a true farewell from this version of yourself.
Adults exist in a much stabler formation. An entire year isn't nothing, but it's far from deserving a dramatic send-off. Yearly events are still infrequent enough to be somewhat special, but they aren't as precious as they once were. Most impressively, seeing someone once a year at the same con for over a decade adds up to real, lasting connections, ones that ripen well with age. These links between people may have felt fleeting when they started, but they just keep strengthening as the years flow on.
Still, a year is a long time-- even adults move, or become disinterested, or run low on cash, and not all of us make it alive from one con to the next. It might feel like a con's end was a simple goodbye, only for it to become a permanent farewell in retrospect.
This coming year of 2025 is going to suck for a lot of us, and I hope we make it through alive and well, or at least as close as we can muster. The guarantee of this year's goodbye revolving back into next year's hello has never been flimsier.
So I'm saying farewell to 2024, but only to that-- to my friends, it's just a little "bye", a comma in the hellacious multi-clause monstrosity of this sentence in the indulgent narrative of my life. The only way we'll all make it through 2025 and beyond is together.
Until next year!
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