Tomorrow I leave. Today I pack up 11 months worth of belongings. Tonight I say goodbye.
I’m not sure how to describe what this feels like.
I don’t know what to call this emotion that is sitting in my stomach. It’s new, but it’s not necessarily bad. It feels like a fog that sits in my stomach and crawls through my veins as I say my goodbyes.
I’m not nervous, and I’m not scared. I’m not worried about sleeping in a tent or not knowing the language. When I think about all of this, the part that makes my insides clench and my eyes water is knowing that I won’t be here for all of the little things. I will miss my sister’s first year of marriage. I’ll miss my best friends’ birthdays. For the first time in 10 years, I’ll miss a summer at camp. You all are going to have celebrations that I won’t get to be here for. My friends are going to face challenges, and I won’t be here to offer a hug. I’m going to miss 2015’s road trips. I’m going to miss many family dinners.
And it’s hard right now to know all of this. Really hard. But I’m comforted with the realization that it’s so hard to say goodbye, because you all offer me so much. It’s difficult to know I won’t be with the enormous amount of people who love me so well. And I remember all over again why I am going.
God has jam packed my life with love the past two years. He has surrounded me with people who love me better and bigger than I ever knew was possible. I have been filled, and filled, and overflown with love and it’s time for me to go share it.
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”- Winnie the Pooh
