When I left college there was a sort of comfort in the fact that almost all of my friends were leaving at the exact same time. We all had new places to be, new adventures to go on, new friends to make… we were all saying goodbye. It’s how high school was, too.
This is the first time in life that I’ve been the only one to really leave and to know that life continues on as normal without me. I’m the only one going… and I feel the loneliness set in.
I’m not even sure if it’s really fully hit me that I’m gone for good, but there are waves of realization that hit me from time to time. I struggle to keep my head above them, and sometimes I succeed and other times I feel myself give in to pull of the current. It hurts.
And then I pop back up again, I see the horizon full of the unknown and my heart leaps with excitement once more.
I feel stuck in this cycle every day. Eagerly anticipating what’s next, but still mourning as each day reminds me of something else that I’m no longer a part of. I have to remind myself that there’s hope, that there’s better, that it hasn’t even been that long and that there are to be months of feeling unsettled because that’s exactly what I’ll be.
I don’t want to be honest about it, either.
I want the transition to be easy and painless and good–and I want it to be like that because I know it’s right. But, even if it’s right, I see now that the journey involves a rougher course than just smooth sailing.
I don’t want to write because I feel unable to even process my own emotions in the midst of saying goodbye to everything I’ve ever known. Starting over again feels weird because I’m mostly just facing the black abyss of the unknown as I stare at my future. There are decisions to be made- decisions that are weighty because of the financial ramifications, the time requirements, the importance of being sure.
I’m never sure.
How are you supposed to decide something when you’re never sure?
My brother recently told me that it’ll all probably get worse before it gets better. I think he’s right.
This is one of the moments where you know all the right things, you know all the comforting things… but those aren’t the things that move you into a better place.
This one of those moments where all I can do is cling to hope, the anchor of my soul.
But, sometimes I think it’s okay to be sad.
Sometimes I think we forget that…and we try to always be ‘perfect’ and happy (or at least appear that way to everyone else). Sometimes I think we don’t want to believe there’s a time to mourn…or that we think we appear weak when we actually need to just be sad.
I may be mourning quite a bit these next few months- but, I may not be. I don’t know what the future holds. I do know there is hope, and that there’s much to seize in stepping into the unknown. I am excited about that, albeit a distant excitement right now.
I hope you feel the freedom to mourn if you need to today. Maybe you’ve left something/someone, too… maybe it’s a church, a city, a community, a relationship, a friendship, a loved one, a job, a school. Maybe you’ve had recent loss and you really need to allow yourself time to mourn. I hope you do.
I also hope that we aren’t people who wallow in that sorrow or sadness… but that we might healthily mourn and still live life to the fullest each day. That we can live life with a perspective of ultimately caring about the things that truly matter, even when it has nothing to do with ourselves (which is typically always).
I just needed to be honest about where my heart was tonight, even if I didn’t want to be.
Thanks for listening (….reading?)
Thanks for letting me be sad.