There are some moments in life that just set you up for the perfect escape. When the urge to run becomes so strong and the rain invites you into its storm. You have no choice but to run.
Right?
It’s my final morning in Moldova. I’m sitting in a coffee shop nook of sorts, windows baring the rain and bustle outside. I feel a bit like I’m sitting outside with the rest of the city, and I like that (could be the extra chill in the room).
This is the type of setting where my mind wanders until my feet can’t wait to. It’s the place where I dream and hope and fear. Those little stabs at my heart of saying goodbye to yet another place with now familiar faces and streets are deflected by the callused exterior I force myself to put up. Because goodbyes are hard, and I’ve said too many of them. But never enough hellos.
There’s this thing called commitment. The word alone makes my heart beat faster. If I were to be honest with myself—if I were to be honest with you—commitment is something I so desperately long for. Yet I seem to re-live the chapter of shallow hellos, mediocre commitment and quick goodbyes over and over. Not that I’m holding back with you, but I just know there’s an end in sight. And the end is so very painful, especially when the people that currently inhabit your life feel like they should stay there forever.
But forever is not an earthly word. Goodbye sure is.
I discovered while sitting at the kitchen table of our Moldovan home that I think I’m drawn to commitment “contracts.” I commit to things if there’s a deadline or an expiration date. I actually really dislike expiration dates (for one reason, it usually means food goes bad beyond the number stamped on the box), but I think I fear being trapped more. I fear being committed to something I didn’t foresee. I fear losing myself to stagnancy and routine. I fear—and this is so dangerously an oxymoron—deep relationships.
If I throw in Race jargon and community, I’d say that I have learned to grow more in commitment. But the Race, too, has an expiration. I have (barely) two months left. I don’t want to dwell on that. But the end is coming, and my eleven month contract will be up. Goodbyes are coming, just like the goodbye I will say to Moldova in a few hours.
So often—too often—I have the urge to run. The gray and gloom beckons me and whispers, just leave. No one will notice. You’ve done it before, and you’ve turned out just fine.
But I don’t want to turn out just fine. I don’t want to run for the sake of exploring and being independent and giving up relationships in the process. I want to be able to answer questions like, “Who’s your best friend?” and “who’s the friend you’ve had the longest?” and “where is your home?” I want to run still, occasionally, but I want to run with people. Consistently.
Dare I even say that I want to commit to something? Something longer, something greater, something I thought I would never choose for myself? Something that doesn’t have goodbyes in the job description or dates of extermination?
Yes, I’m scared. Because I pride myself in the run. I pride myself in being “strong enough” to say goodbye consistently. But the truth is, friends, I am not strong. I am scared.
When I have the urge to run, I’m going to choose to stay. Goodbyes will not define me.
