Time to Say Goodbye

Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, the kind where you wave off a piece of your life and step into the unknown? That's the heart of our latest episode, where Beth and Steph peel back the layers of emotion that accompany the goodbyes we face throughout life. From the annual farewells to years and birthdays, to those deeply personal ones like leaving a job, or even more profound, coping with the loss of someone close, we share our insights and stories on how each parting offers a path to growth.

Full transcript and show notes here: https://bit.ly/dospod149
Voicemail & text: (850) 270-3308

Stephanie Kostopoulos : https://www.stephaniekostopoulos.com/
Beth Demme: http://bethdemme.com/

Chapters

• 0:03 Saying Goodbye
• 7:07 Goodbye to Jobs and Loved Ones
• 16:00 Saying Goodbye in Life and Death
• 27:24 Importance of Saying Goodbye and Moving Forward
• 34:01 Questions for Reflections

Transcript

Beth Demme: 0:03

Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 0:06

We share personal experiences so we can learn from each other. I'm Steph and I'm Beth. I've been in recovery for 17 years and am the author of Discovering my Scars, my memoir about what's done in the darkness eventually comes to light.

Beth Demme: 0:16

I'm a lawyer turned pastor who's all about self-awareness and emotional health, because I know what it's like to have neither of those things.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 0:23

Beth and I have been friends for years, have gone through a recovery program together, and when I wanted to start a podcast, she was the only name that came to mind as co-host.

Beth Demme: 0:29

I didn't hesitate to say yes because I've learned a lot from sharing personal experiences with Steph over the years. We value honest conversations and we hope you do too. On today's show we're going to have an honest conversation titled Time to Say Goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 0:43

Then we'll share a slice of life, and the show will close with questions for reflection. We'll invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life. Well, bye.

Beth Demme: 0:51

Yeah. You were like, let's have a show and call it Time to Say Goodbye, and I was like are you trying to tell me something, are you? Do you want to say goodbye to me, are you like?

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 1:00

no, never. Get out of the podcast studio, that's in my house Actually, I can't say never, because I think that's the whole point of today's episode is that at some point we will have to say goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 1:09

But I don't like to think about it, about saying goodbye to people in your life. Yeah, I don't like to think about that. Okay, well, and I guess that's what we're talking about today is, as we were thinking through this topic, we realized there's a lot of things that we do say goodbye to in our life and have to say goodbye to, and it's not necessarily the obvious goodbyes. So that's, I think, what we're going to dig into.

Beth Demme: 1:33

Yeah. So just to recap, what often happens on the Discovering Our Scars podcast is, steph says, hey, maybe we should think about this or talk about this, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to think about that. And she's like, yes, let's do an episode on it then. Well, the truth is we are nearing the end of the year, and so there is a sense of, like things, winding down, a natural goodbye, yeah. And so say goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 1:59

But that is something that happens to everyone at the same time, at the same time and place every year. So I guess that is a good place to start. Is goodbyes that are you know all the time, like even on your birthday. Like you know, there's two ways of looking at your birthday actually it's like it's like a whole new year, exciting new year, that you don't know what's coming. Or it can be sad Like oh my gosh, I'm like right, I'm not, you know 36 anymore.

Beth Demme: 2:32

Yeah Well, I think people especially feel that way at decades, right Like oh, goodbye 30s, hello 40s.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 2:38

Do you think as you get older, you get sadder around birthdays or happy, or like do you think there's a different shift as you get older with birthdays?

Beth Demme: 2:49

I really didn't like turning 30, but every birthday since then has been pretty good and it's not like my 30,. My, that was a bad year and it was just like something about that number to me felt really monumental. And the numbers after that it's kind of like, yeah, now, when I get closer to 50, I may feel differently. It's not that far away, but it is a couple years away.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 3:10

Yeah, so like the decades.

Beth Demme: 3:12

Yeah, I think that there's something about the decades.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 3:16

Yeah, like birthdays don't really hold any weight to me anymore. I remember when I was younger, like birthdays were like, oh my gosh, I'm turning 18, whatever. But now it's just kind of like a day and it's more. It's more like a reflection for me about just life in general. So I get kind of like introspective more on birthdays and I don't necessarily, I guess, I go through the emotions of it.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 3:43

Like there is an element that's sad of like like, oh my gosh, should I waste just last year, like I'm only going to be 36 once. Did I do everything I need to do when I was 36? And then there's like the realization, like, oh my gosh, I am 37. Wow, wow, do you still always know your age? No, I, the other day I literally was thinking in my head I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm maybe 39 this year. That's crazy, that's so close to 40. And then a second later I was like, oh my gosh, no, I'm going to be 38 this year. Oh my gosh, I'm going to say year of my life. So no, I absolutely don't know my age and it's, it's pretty jarring, yeah.

Beth Demme: 4:22

So with birthdays, with like, when, the, when the year changes, we are saying goodbye, but we're also immediately saying hi to something new, right, hi to the new year, hi to the new age, and so maybe those good guys are easier because they're they're completely out of our control. Like, the calendar is going to do what it's going to do, time is going to do what it does, but also then we have this new thing.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 4:42

And we have that set set aside time for kind of that reflection. So I think, for me, the good guys that are like the hardest are the unexpected and the people, but there's been definitely a handful of good guys that have been super hard. I think, for me, um, leaving my jobs, um, I left my job at Apple. Um, and that was really hard because I like the comfort of knowing of what's going to happen and even though with Apple, there was things I was frustrated about and there was things that, like I was like I want to move on, it still was super scary to leave because it was the unknown like what is that going to look? Like? Um, and the easier thing would have just been to stay.

Beth Demme: 5:23

Yeah Well, how did you know it was time to say goodbye? It was a feeling, yeah.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 5:27

Um, you know, there was definitely times throughout my five years of working there where I was like I'm so mad I'm just going to quit. You know there's those feelings of, look, I'm going to quit. And those aren't the times that I quit, because that's not, um, you know, when I it's definitely a feeling of like, you know there's just that like leave, but it was, it was, um, a rational feeling when it was like you know, there's definitely things I'm frustrated about here, but ultimately I feel like I've done everything that I needed to do here and it's time to move on. So it was a feeling of it's time. And once I realized that feeling, that's when I, you know, made the next steps of okay, where, when am I going to do next? I'm going to tell my boss I'm going to, you know, quit all those things. It definitely was. You know I was saying goodbye. It was never going to be the same again.

Beth Demme: 6:18

Did you have that feeling when you decided to stay in Orlando after you finished at UCF, like? Did you have a sense that you were saying goodbye to your hometown?

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 6:28

And I decided to stay. It wasn't even, um, a really a process, because it was like I had been in school and I had been working at Disney and Apple and I was going to be able to make those jobs permanent after school. And it just was, it just all happened. Just, it just happened Like it wasn't a choice I really made and my last semester of school was online and so I moved to an apartment closer to you to Apple and I went full time. So, like it just kind of happened. It wasn't really like I am now a Orlando liver, Like this is where I live now. It just kind of like this just is.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 7:07

So I don't remember like a saying goodbye to Tallahassee. I mean, I said goodbye to Tallahassee when I moved to go to UCF for school and I was happy about that. I was like I'm not gonna be a townie at all. No, and I still am not a townie because I chose to come back. I wasn't forced to come back. So I don't think, you know, it was a conscious choice to move back to Tallahassee.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 7:30

And then I fell in love with Tallahassee in an adult way. You know it's not, it still is my childhood place, but, like in the same thing. I decided to leave my job at the church years ago. Now I how many is? 10 years now, I don't even know. Well, less than that, but still it's eight years, eight years ago. And it was the same feeling with Apple, where it's like there's things I'm frustrated about, there's things that I like, there's comfort in the known, but it's time. And it was just that same feeling, but it was hard because I'm saying goodbye to all my coworkers and everything that I knew and it would never be the same again. And also, when you quit a job, you know that says something, that the finality of it. Like you know I think there's other ways that you could leave a job, in other things that could bring you to different places. But like when you just say like I'm quitting, I'm done, like I don't know, there's just something like very final about it.

Beth Demme: 8:27

No, you're right. I think I've only ever quit one job, like when I left the law firm that I worked for to stay home with my kids. It was I'm gonna do this for a season and I'll be back. Oh, so you didn't even really quit. I never quit. And I mean, have you yet? Or generously, kindly, wonderfully, they would check in with me, like, hey, are you still checking? Are you ready to come back? You know they've stopped checking now. Oh, okay, but I really appreciated that for the first couple of years they checked in with me and I could have gone back if I had been ready. And I wasn't ready, I needed to be home with my kids. I needed it for them and I needed it for me. So, yeah, I never really quit. The only job I quit was a really bad job.

Beth Demme: 9:17

Yeah, that was like bye yeah that I worked, I think, for one or two days and I was like this is a really terrible place and I don't wanna work here anymore. And the manager said well, can you finish out your schedule? And I said no, this is a really terrible place, I don't wanna work here anymore.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 9:30

I was really honest. Wow, yeah, were you in high school?

Beth Demme: 9:34

No, I was in college. Oh, okay, yeah, I was in college. Was it Discovery Zone? No, how did you work at Discovery Zone? Close, the very Right. I think they were still open, though when I left I graduated. I graduated from college, and so then it was like this is a natural ending point.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 9:51

Your two examples are kind of what I'm talking about, where, like when I quit, like that's a, like that says something, but you had a natural oh I'm done with college, so it made sense to leave that job, and so no one really, you know, questioned that, and then you didn't actually quit your law job.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 10:09

I didn't, you didn't have that finality and so and that's enough. So those are two examples of ways where you're not making that like full commitment of goodbye. You're still holding onto a thread, and I wonder how many people are in like my situation versus your situation where, like I, like when I'm done with something, I'm done with it. I don't want to leave the loose strings, it's hard, but I want to like this is done and we all know it's done, and for you it's like I'm going to hold on to whatever.

Beth Demme: 10:36

I can. I want to keep my options open, yeah.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 10:38

Yeah, or I want it to just naturally happen where there's, which totally makes sense. You're that way now, like you are the yes woman and you're going to say yes.

Beth Demme: 10:47

I say yes, I can yes and yeah.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 10:49

Like your goal in life is to say yes, yes, and so if someone's like, well, although you didn't say yes to go back to the law firm, but you said yes to yeah keep checking in.

Beth Demme: 11:00

Yeah, I was always not. Yet Can't do it yet.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 11:03

See, that was so annoying me though, like that would so annoying me, just give just. If you're not coming back, just be done with it Like I would. That's how I am. I prefer someone to be completely honest with themselves first, and then with me. I really thought I would go back, though. I really did, but how many years was it until you realized you weren't going back, and then they stopped calling Like how long did that?

Beth Demme: 11:25

take. I mean, it was probably two or three years before they stopped calling.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 11:29

That's crazy, but I stayed friends with them, see, but I think there's an element of you that don't want to upset people, and if you had said I quit, so you'd never really had to say so. It's almost the it's the easier way out to just kind of keep that leash there and just for my own self.

Beth Demme: 11:47

I wanted to keep that option open. I wanted to keep. I wanted to go back to that job if I wanted to.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 11:54

In reality, though, you could have easily gone. You could have easily said I quit, I'm done, but you still could have gone back. If you had asked years later, you could have still said hey, like were they keeping your position open. No, I mean, Well then there's no reason you could have easily gone back to it without like holding this lifeline.

Beth Demme: 12:13

A law firm's a little different, because you basically have to earn your own salary. Yeah, so it's, if they think that you can generate enough work to cover your salary, they're gonna say, yes, you could come back. Yeah, but yeah, I'm thinking about even like my high school job. I had it until I went away to college and then, when I went away to college, I came back and I worked there in the summer, so I really haven't. I've only quit that one job.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 12:40

And that's the job I had in high school was working at the church that I worked at years later and that was kind of what happened. There was I was in college and then or no, I was in high school and then I moved to UCF. So it was more like I'm leaving. It wasn't like I quit. So I definitely know that feeling verse like I quit. So I wonder how many people actually quit jobs.

Beth Demme: 13:06

Right.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 13:07

Or leave, and also it's a kind of a privileged place to be with the law firm where, like, how many jobs are going to check in to see if you want to come back? Like most jobs are like you're here or you're not, like yeah, it's true they were they were really good to me.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 13:21

That's a kind of a different situation, like I couldn't have done that at Apple. You know, if I wanted to, it was either you quit, if you come back, then we'll rehire you, but we're not gonna keep checking in with you. So I think that's a pretty rare.

Beth Demme: 13:34

They were really kind and really generous with me. That's true.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 13:37

So definitely saying goodbye to a job is like you know, it's a, it's a kind of a transition in life kind of goodbye. And then something that I have definitely had experience with lately is losing a person or pet. So I in the last few years I lost both my grandparents and my aunt and that was definitely kind of a a hard reality. And then you know, just actually almost a year, it's gonna be a year end of January I lost my first dog ever, mac, and you know it's still hard like, especially like last month was her gotcha day and her birthday, and so just you know the anniversaries of those dates. I think it will obviously get easier with time, but because it was my first, you know.

Beth Demme: 14:25

I think it's just all of that and like your memories from one year ago.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 14:29

Yeah, yeah, and then in January last year she was sick for a lot of January. So I'm like gearing up, I'm like, okay, I need to do a lot of happy things, cause, yeah, it was a definitely a hard reality last year. But I think I think losing, especially something kind of unexpected, like with Mac. She got sick really quickly and then I had to like put her down within like two weeks of this kind of big pain that she was in, and so it was unexpected. And so I think these like unexpected goodbyes I don't think it's ever easy to lose somebody, but like if someone has cancer or something that has been an illness going on, like you kind of can prepare yourself, even though you can never like fully be prepared.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 15:14

You still have to go through the process. But with Mac, I mean, it was just I had never. That was the first time I'd have really gone through like the full grieving process and like really like lived in each of those steps. So I think those, I think for me that's probably probably the most life changing goodbye I've ever had with Mac. How about you?

Beth Demme: 15:34

Shortly before my 14th birthday, my oldest brother died in an accident, so it was completely unexpected. That was. That has been formative in my life. But also, I think when I think about saying goodbye to a person, I think about my dad. He passed away in February of 2014. So we're coming up on the 10 year actually of that. And he had been. He had been sick, he had some medical conditions and I knew things were getting harder for him, but then he went into the hospital on a Sunday and passed away on the Friday. So that week everything was really compressed and he was ready. And I think that happens sometimes where the people who are at the end of their life, nearing the end of their life, they're ready maybe before their family members are.

Beth Demme: 16:29

It was a time that was really holy and spiritual and filled with a lot of blessings and that in Christianity we would say the peace that passes, understanding, like that idea. So much so that we met with hospice pretty early on, like maybe on Tuesday of that week or something, and there was still an oncology consult kind of out in the paperwork and when the oncologist came, the nurse pulled me aside later and told me the story. But she said, the oncologist came and I explained to him that the consult wasn't needed anymore and he said well, why? And she said well, mr Gibbons is in multi-system organ failure. And the oncologist said yeah, but we could still treat the cancer. And she was mad.

Beth Demme: 17:15

The nurse was mad about it. She was like why would he wanna put somebody through that? Why would he wanna put your family through that? She was venting and I was totally at peace. My dad was at peace. This is what he wanted. He was awake and alert and was able to communicate his choices and I was fine with it. And then, like six months later, I thought, oh, no, maybe we should have tried more. Maybe we shouldn't, maybe we gave up. Why did we give up? Well, the truth is we didn't give up. Multi-system organ failure is not something people recover from and his body was done and he was at peace with that. But later I second guessed that and I thought about that on college and I thought, oh, maybe we should have let. No, no, no. It was time to say goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 18:04

When someone dies or something significant dies in your life, do you automatically say goodbye or do you have to come to the realization that you're ready to say goodbye For you questioning these things? Do you think you weren't allowing yourself to actually say goodbye yet because you were still questioning? Or do you think when something dies, automatically you say goodbye?

Beth Demme: 18:28

No, I had goodbye, but I think I went from being okay with saying goodbye to thinking I had done the wrong thing by saying goodbye. Questioning your decision, yeah. Questioning my willingness to say goodbye, yeah. And I really wasn't willing. I didn't have a choice.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 18:44

So it's more of a process, like you can say goodbye, but you might have to say goodbye a few times for it to stick. Yeah.

Beth Demme: 18:52

And I remember it helped me understand. At that point I wasn't practicing law anymore, but I remembered when I practiced law full time. One of the one of my practice areas was that I actually defended nursing homes when they were sued, usually by family members of someone who had passed away in the facility. And there were so many times when I would read the medical records and I would think, obviously this person was going to die. I mean you, just just medically, that's what's happening. And the family had not come to terms with it at all and that's why they had to sue, because they felt like they had to vindicate this death somehow. And it's like blessed. You know, your mother was 112 years old. Like humans don't live forever, you know. But my experience with my dad helped me understand that better in hindsight to go, oh, what I'm feeling now and being like, oh, maybe we should have tried more. That's what those families were feeling, that that was their way to try more.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 19:52

Not coming to the reality of, of the, of the goodbye. Really Like you are, like refusing to say goodbye even though you know this person is dead. Yeah.

Beth Demme: 20:02

And that's one of the the, the stages of grief. Right Is denial. Yeah, there's a lot you get to before you get to acceptance, and then you can loop back through them again. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But sometimes there are times when we have to say goodbye to someone long before they pass away. You know someone who's not a healthy influence in our life. In our life, um, I mean, you've, you've shared some of that. There are family members that you, that are not part of your life and never will be, for good reasons.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 20:31

Yeah, and it wasn't something that I, like told them to their face, um, because there was nothing, you know, that needed to be happen there. But, yeah, there's people that I have said goodbye to, that I will not talk to again, that I will not not associate with, because for my mental health and for not being, you know, needing to have their influence in my life anymore, their unhealthiness in my life, yeah, and then there's, um, you know, there's friendships that I feel like I always feel like friendships. There's friendships that are in for seasons of your life.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 21:04

In friendship cases, I feel like it's more, um, there was never a definitive goodbye, it just kind of like it just happens over time, just as, like, life progresses and your life's going different directions. I think, in those cases, like there's been times I've looked back at like friendships and realized like, oh, I don't talk to them anymore. Huh, and it's just like you don't realize it, you don't realize that you said goodbye and you never actually mourned it, um, because it just kind of happened. It wasn't kind of like, well, yeah, you just there was just a natural end to it.

Beth Demme: 21:38

It just naturally ended. I do think social media keeps some of those friendships alive in a way, uh, kind of can prevent the goodbye, because it's like oh, it's okay, you can touch.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 21:49

Yeah, which is nice. Yeah, I could see that A lot of my friends, though, aren't really active on social media, which is Millennials Interesting. Yeah, because we're like how it all started, and yet a lot of my friends, just like are not active at all.

Beth Demme: 22:03

Yeah, I can also say like I've been on the other side of it, where I, I am the friend who's like trying to stay in touch through social media. You know, somebody like moves away and I'm like, oh, I miss them, I want to see what's going on in their life. You know, I'm not stalking them on social media, but I'm paying attention. Yeah, I'm paying attention. I want to stay, I want to stay involved and in those cases I was just I was actually just saying this to Hannah this week. I was saying, you know, one of the things about living in Tallahassee is it's sort of transient.

Beth Demme: 22:34

You know people come here for a season, they come for school or they come for a job. That ends up. You know, and I was. I was just talking about so many of the people that I've met and really liked. They've moved on to other cities and that can be hard. That's like a forced goodbye, you know, like they're when you're the one being said goodbye to. That's a different thing.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 22:58

Well and forced goodbyes is like something where you you don't really have a choice in the matter. Yeah, and that makes me think of we've talked about this a little bit before, but we both went to a united, we both met at a United Methodist church and you are a United Methodist pastor in. The church that we both developed our friendship in was a United Methodist church and recently they voted to leave the United Methodist yes Denomination and to create their own denomination. That was a very jarring, sad reality when I I've always kind of if I was to identify with any religion or any denominations. United Methodist, that's where I was raised in. Do I believe in every single thing within the doctrine? No, well, definitely no, because some things have not changed. But basically the short story of it is United Methodist church wants to allow gay pastors and pastors to marry me Same gender couples.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 24:01

Same gender couples and the people that left do not want those things and they created their own denomination because of that. It's sad because I will never go back to that church. I can never go back to that church. They don't accept me. I am gay, they would tell you. They accept me. Of course we invite anyone into our church, but if you wanna be married, no. If you want to be a pastor here, no.

Beth Demme: 24:25

But you're welcome to come and give your money. Yes, you're always welcome to do that, god loves you. But maybe they can even change you.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 24:32

Probably. That's, I assume, is their goal. Yes, which is fun, because I was part of that church and it didn't change me for how many years was I in that church?

Beth Demme: 24:41

The first time.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 24:43

That's why they had to leave. That's why they had to leave because the United Methodist didn't do a good enough job keeping the gays out or just converting the gays.

Beth Demme: 24:52

It is sad, though, to lose your home church. Like that's sad To have them walk away from you.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 24:56

They did yeah, because we didn't change, we're still United Methodist. We didn't say we don't accept these things, like they told us. We don't accept you and accept all people and we're closing our doors to the United Methodist church. So I would say that's a force goodbye, where I have to be faced with that reality. I didn't choose that reality, I was faced with that and I would say it's still sad. It doesn't like, it just is reality. I think I have accepted it. But it's still sad Because I actually didn't realize I was gay until it's been less than a year. So when they actually left the United Methodist church, I didn't know I was gay. So but I still. It was very hurtful and now it's even more hurtful. Now I realize that they literally ostracized me for who I am and who God made me to be.

Beth Demme: 25:57

It is sad and I think one reason it's sad is because I still care about them and I know that they don't care about me.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 26:05

Have you ever regretted saying goodbye to something Like in hindsight you realize like you shouldn't have left that something or ended that relationship.

Beth Demme: 26:15

I don't think so. I think the closest I've come was the grief over my dad and thinking that maybe we hadn't done enough to delay the goodbye. That's probably the closest I've come. Have you? Have you regretted a goodbye?

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 26:30

Well, I am somebody that really thinks through a lot of stuff in life, just in general, everything Like if you ask me to do something, I'm gonna think about it. I'm not just gonna say yes, you know that about me. But when I say yes, that's a hard yes, that's a 100% gonna happen unless I'm sick, yes, so I would say I can't think of any goodbyes. I've regretted and ultimately, with hindsight, I realized how important it was. So like when I left Apple, like I didn't know what was gonna happen next, but I moved back to Tallahassee, I started working at the church and I loved my life, like that was the very best decision for me and for my mental health specifically. And when I left the church, I had literally no idea what I was gonna do and I decided to go full time with Mother in Our Projects and that was eight years ago. I'm still doing that.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 27:24

I can definitely see after saying goodbye, I can see how good and right that decision was and how important that was for me. Now, when it comes to something like saying goodbye to my dog Mac you know it's been almost a year Do I regret that? I mean that's you can't regret something that, like I didn't choose for her to die, but I can see all the positives that she brought to my life. You know, there was a moment where I was like I'm never having a dog again, like I'm never, I can't do this. But then realizing how important the process of saying goodbye was and how important it was that she was in my life for the time she was in my life. So I don't wouldn't say I ever regret goodbyes, but I can definitely see how important they were. That process was in my life. Like no one really wants to like go through a process for anything, Like.

Beth Demme: 28:13

I don't think we like are like seeking out oh process.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 28:16

This will be good for me, but once you go through it, I don't know that it's going to make it easier necessarily. Actually, my therapist did say the more times I go through the grieving process, the easier it will be in the. Not that I won't go through the giving process, but I think I'll have that like knowledge and it will help like help me win. You know people pass and things like that. So I guess there is something to like. The more we say goodbye, the better we get at it and maybe the more we can consciously know like when the time is to say goodbye.

Beth Demme: 28:50

I did just think of a forced goodbye that I was really sad about, but that it ended up not being a forever goodbye. So Steven and I have been married for 28 years, but we started dating in high school and he was a year ahead of me in school and when he came over to the Florida State University he broke up with me because he did not want to have a high school girlfriend, and that was very, very sad for me. I did not want the relationship to end. I was really sad, but then we got back together. So I guess he regretted saying goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 29:21

We'll have to ask him about that. But ultimately, do you think it so more? It was a pause.

Beth Demme: 29:29

It ended up being a pause, but there was no way to know that at the time. There was no way to know it.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 29:32

So do you think you grieved the relationship and you were over it?

Beth Demme: 29:36

I was not over it Okay, but I definitely grieved. My mom still teases me about it to this day. I thought you were going to cry forever. I was sad. I got dumped. I was sad and I wonder what he was feeling.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 29:52

You know if he was feeling the same way or if, because, like I would think, a lot of times in a relationship, where a relationship ends, one person's a driving force, in that it can also be a mutual thing. But I think there's probably a lot of times where one person is the one to say goodbye and the other person. So I wonder what the feeling is for the person that says the goodbye versus the person that hears the goodbye, like what the emotional toll is on that.

Beth Demme: 30:19

I had to handle a divorce case one time. It was a friend of a partner at the law firm and we represented the husband and he was absolutely done with this marriage. It was a very short marriage, they were very young. He basically said as soon as we got married I knew it was wrong. And I mean they had been married months, why didn't they get?

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 30:36

an old then.

Beth Demme: 30:37

I don't think they met the requirements for a moment. So we go before the judge, you know, for the divorce and the judge says so, this is what the two of you have decided you want. And the wife was like no, your honor, this is not what I want. I love him and I want to be married to him. And the judge was like, oh snap, ask that question wrong.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 30:56

You know like you could see it in his face, you know what he was like.

Beth Demme: 30:59

I am so sorry. Let me rephrase that you both understand why you're here today.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 31:06

Did the man roll his eyes like oh my gosh.

Beth Demme: 31:09

No, he was sad that it was making her sad, but also like he knew it had to be done. He knew it was time to say goodbye and that her being in a marriage with somebody who did not want to be married to her was not ultimately going to be good for her either, you know.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 31:24

Why didn't he want to be married to her? Were you working for him?

Beth Demme: 31:26

Yeah, I was working for him and he didn't have a specific reason. He wasn't. He was like she's actually a nice person, like she's very pretty, she's happy to talk to, like he didn't have. He just he wasn't actually in love with her. It was more like everybody said this was a great relationship and you know everything from like you guys look great together to you seem great together too, and it just snowballed. I think it got away from him and he was young, so he just kind of went with her and he was young and he thought, okay, this is going to be okay.

Beth Demme: 31:50

Everybody says it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. And then he got married and he was like I have done the wrong thing. You know, I should have said goodbye a long time ago and it caused a lot of pain. That he didn't say goodbye sooner that he didn't say goodbye sooner For both of them it caught. You know he caused pain to both of them by not saying goodbye when it was time to say goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 32:08

Well and I think that's part of saying goodbye is you have to really know yourself and be honest with yourself to be able to do it, to be able to say goodbye and to be able to know Cause like for me it's always been a feeling. But if I'm not in touch enough with myself, then I wouldn't recognize that feeling and especially if you're young, you're not going to recognize that like you would as you get older. It does take some life experience. Yeah, I wonder how many people regret not saying goodbye sooner than anything.

Beth Demme: 32:35

Well, one thing we have no choice about saying goodbye to is the calendar changing, and that's getting ready to happen. We're about to say goodbye to a year, say hello to a year. How do you feel about that? You ready? You ready to say goodbye to this year?

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 32:50

This has been a year. A year. It started with a bang, with Mac passing away.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 32:57

And then I started to realize that I might be gay. And then I realized I was gay and then I started dating a woman for the first. Well, I started dating really for the first time in my life. I had dated a few guys here and there, but never had a real relationship, so this has been a banger of a year. Yeah, am I ready to say goodbye? Yes, and I'm very interested to see where next year takes me. How about you? Same, I'm the gay thing for sure With you. Yeah, is that what you?

Beth Demme: 33:31

learned this year. You didn't tell us about that. I realized this year that Steph is gay and but I have enjoyed seeing how happy you are being yourself, being your authentic self and also being in a relationship. That's been fun to watch Having a gay old time.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 33:49

That's perfect.

Beth Demme: 33:51

But I like new beginnings too. So I'm ready for. I'm ready to say goodbye to this year and ready for the new year, and we'll see what 2024 holds. At the end of each episode, we end with questions for reflection.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 34:05

These are questions based on today's show that Beth will read and leave a little pause for you to answer to yourself, or you can find a PDF on our website. Number one what's the last thing you said goodbye to?

Beth Demme: 34:18

What emotions are tied to that? Number two what's the hardest goodbye you've ever had? Number three have you ever regretted a goodbye, why? And number four what are your feelings on saying goodbye to? Each year, this has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Goodbye.

Stephanie Kostopoulos: 34:38

This has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Goodbye.