For me, it's working through my backlog of restaurant reviews at a much quicker rate. I'm a hobbyist restaurant reviewer and normally, I take months to finish each review. But now I only take a week for each review, since I anticipate being gone before the end of the month.
I've been eating unhealthily and have given up exercising. My long-term health is not a concern anymore. I've been doing the fun things which I'd put off until now. Axe-throwing, ice skating, pottery classes - all the things which I've always told myself were for later, I'm doing them now. I'm playing the Steam games I always said I'd play later, I'm wearing the expensive makeup and perfumes I was gifted years ago but always felt were too nice to use up.
I'm using my nice craft supplies, I'm cutting up the fancy fabric I was saving for when I'm more experienced with sewing, I'm placing my stickers everywhere despite normally being too anxious to commit to placing a sticker anywhere in case there's somewhere else I want to put that sticker later. I'm 24 soon and I have stickers saved from kindergarten. Well, I'm finally using them up. (Really, it's a miracle they're still in usable condition. Seriously, keep your stickers in an airtight box - my stickers from 19 years ago are still good.)
But I think my quietest goodbye is not buying more water bottles. The water where I am is cloudy and simply not good to drink, and even with a Brita filter, I still tend to get nauseous from it, so I always drink bottled water. I'm halfway through a big pack of water bottles, and normally, I'd buy more at this point to ensure some sort of buffer, but I'm not buying any more water. My parents think I've just forgotten and I'll buy more when I'm down to a couple bottles, but no. This is goodbye and they don't even know it.
P.S. Your writing is exquisite.
This is beautiful. Not in a romanticised way, but in the way that truth often is when someone finally stops saving things for later. The stickers got me. There's something so tragic about using what was once too precious to touch. I think that might be one of the most tender forms of goodbye I've ever heard.
You're not drifting—you're choosing where your energy goes, even now. That matters.
And the water bottles? That one hit harder than I expected. There's something about deciding not to restock, not to refill, not to replenish that speaks louder than any letter ever could. We leave in gestures long before we leave in body.
I think your way of closing the loop—finishing what you started, doing what you'd always put off—is a form of dignity, honestly. You're not rushing. You're reclaiming the calendar. Taking things off the "someday" shelf and making them part of the now.
Thank you for writing this. I'm grateful to have read it.
I hope the fabric feels soft in your hands. I hope the perfume still smells like joy. I hope the stickers stick, and that somewhere inside, the kid who saved them for "just the right moment" knows this was it.
P.S. Thank you for the compliment. It means a lot!
Your writing is beautiful.
I don't think I will have any quiet goodbyes. I live with my family, and my mom is extremely perceptive. She will be able to take note of probably every single tiny change of behavior I exhibit in the weeks and months leading up to my death, in hindsight at least.
Thank you for your words. That means a lot to me.
And I hear you. Some of us don't get the luxury of quiet exits. When you live with someone who knows you down to your breath patterns, even silence gets loud. Every small shift becomes a clue. Every goodbye starts echoing before you've even said it.
It's a strange thing—to feel like your pain is invisible to the world, and yet know there's one person who would see everything after. Who would comb through memories looking for missed signs, and find them all. That kind of perception can feel like both love and a cage.
But you're not doing anything wrong by thinking about this. You're not selfish. You're not bad. You're just someone trying to figure out how to exit without lighting a fire behind you and that's an impossible ask when you're close to someone.
So maybe your goodbye won't be quiet. Maybe it'll be subtle in the moment and shatteringly loud in hindsight. But that's not your fault. That's just what grief does when love was real.
Whatever you choose, whether you stay or go, you are allowed to feel the weight of being known, and still want peace.
I've gone through so many things this past year, clearing out and organizing. Deleted a lot of accounts, etc. most importantly I have made it a point to see the people I love and engage with them fully while I do. I've been saying I love you a lot more openly and letting things go a lot more easily. I don't want anyone to have regrets, wish they would have said something different or wish our last interaction wasn't hostile, so I've gone out of my way to not allow it to be. They don't know it, maybe they never will realize it, but I started saying goodbye a long time ago.
This is one of the most generous things I've read in a long time.
You're doing something most people can't: leaving thoughtfully. Not out of obligation, but out of love. And not the movie scene kind of love but the real kind. The kind that lets go of resentment even when you'd be justified holding onto it. The kind that says "I love you" for closure.
You've given them something they may never even recognise: a final chapter with no bitterness. They'll look back and feel peace without knowing it was because of you. And yeah, that might sting a little. But it's also a kind of love most people don't have the strength to pull off.
You started saying goodbye a long time ago, and maybe they'll never see it for what it was. Thank you for sharing this.
Your post is well written, and I have never consciously addressed the subtle changes in behavior that accompany having made a firm decision.
I guess my subtle goodbyes would be inconspicuous things like no longer going to the gym, oversleeping, making a will...
Making a will. It's such a clinical act, but when it comes from someone who's already made their decision, it becomes something else entirely. The gym, the oversleeping—those are the ones most people wouldn't even notice until much later. Those are withdrawals. Your body stepping back from the routines that used to tether it to the world. Not out of laziness but out of clarity.
It's strange how the smallest behaviours start to shift once the mind settles into finality.
I used to collect Hot Wheels and other 1:64 die-cast cars. Most of my suppliers are on Facebook, but I no longer go there because there's the possibility of checking some unread messages from my ex/seeing her profile pic. So that's already one thing that tells people I've given up.
I've started talking about me in the past tense, that may be another quiet subtle hint. Saying things like "I made some good memories", "I had some good times", "It should've never come to this." I've also been telling my closest ones that I'll love them forever no matter what happens.
There's also a quiet yet very loud gesture for those who know me and it's the fact that, since her gearbox went bang on the track in December, I haven't had the will to repair my Violeta. My tuner says he's got a gearbox he'll give me for free, folks from the shop have asked me about when I'll race again, but I've given up. It's the loudest expression of my hopelessness and dissatisfaction with life: my most prized object, once the vehicle of my hopes and dreams both literal and figuratively, the space where my ex and I shared our first kiss; just there, left on a parking space to gather dust. She roared for the last time last year, I did too.
This reads like grief in motion. The kind that unfolds in choices no one sees unless they're paying attention. Refusing to fix Violeta is not just about a car. It's about letting go of a version of yourself that once held momentum, connection and fire. You've parked her, and yourself, and you haven't looked back.
The shift to past tense is something most people won't clock until it's too late. And as for not going on Facebook—avoiding your ex, avoiding the trap of maybe-feeling or maybe-remembering—that's protection. But it's also another withdrawal. Another retreat from places that once meant something. Another gesture of completion.
You don't need me to validate your pain. You've already made it clear in the way you've let your former passions rot in daylight.
But I will say this: people rarely stop tending to the things they love without reason. You didn't give up lightly. This was the long slow burn of someone who tried, until they couldn't.
i'm still not settled on when i want to end everything. my suicidal ideation ebbs and flows. but i noticed that ive let go of the social norms and rules i made up for myself. i no longer feel attached to what people say and think, about me or life in general. i feel very removed from the reality of this world.
That kind of detachment hits different. It's like a drift. Like you're stepping out of the frame slowly. Letting go of the noise and the rules you once used to hold yourself together. You're not alone in that in between place.
Me and a friend if mine play a video game together. I had initially introduced him to the game. I asked him if he'll play the game even if I don't. He said probably not because he plays more to hang out with me than as a game. I asked him to keep playing even I don't in honor of my character. He was a bit weirded out and asked why I would stop. I didn't say anything about ctb, just made something up about it being a hypothetical, like if I switch to a new game he doesn't like or something.
A way to say, "Remember me here, where it was still light sometimes."
And I get why you kept it vague. There's something about not letting the heaviness spill into every corner of your life, especially with people who wouldn't know what to do with it. But even without knowing, your friend gave you something kind: he plays because you're there.
Pushing away the people I love most so as they don't get hurt so much when I ctb
I get it. It feels like if you make the goodbye quiet enough, it won't hurt them as much. But distance doesn't erase love. It just adds confusion to grief.
My mother went back to her home country for several weeks as my grandmother passed away. The night before she left, I sat down with her and had a talk about life stuff for a few hours then gave her a big hug and kiss goodbye. It was me saying goodbye as it was the last time we'd see each other, if everything goes well on my end. Just waiting for my grandmothers funeral to pass.
That sounds like a deeply human goodbye. Full of love without needing to explain itself. You gave her something she'll carry, whether she realises it now or not. Whatever happens next, I hope it brought you a little peace.
I have one "friend". I don't really have any conversations with him anymore, but we still send videos and very rarely we will hop online and play a few rounds of some game together. I've known him since I was 6 or 7, and we've been friends since we were probably 13 or 14. I think before we go I'll send him one last video and ask if he wants to play video games one more time.
It sounds like you're planning to leave soon, do you have a plan decided on or a date/timeline?
That sounds like a deeply personal and fitting way to say goodbye. Sometimes the quietest gestures are the most sincere. A final game, a laugh, a familiar rhythm. And he may never know it was a goodbye but you will.
As for me—yes, I've made my decision. I am awaiting my SN. I've spent a long time preparing. For now, I'm just tying loose ends and writing things like this while I still can.
If you ever want to talk more before then, I'll be around.
