Growing Up

I just need to write today.

I needed a break from processing element of change #347 of this season. So here I am, sipping my gingerbread latte out of a red cup at Starbucks, easing my pain with the opiate of the rest of the masses.

The days are ticking down. Months have turned into weeks, which will soon be mere hours. I’m celebrating at least two or three different “lasts” this weekend.

I feel really good. I was talking with a friend last week about it all, and she said (with maybe a touch of surprise), “You sound really healthy, like you’re handling everything well, and you’re in a good place.”

Maybe it just sounded to me like she was surprised because I’m surprised. Yes, I am sad. Yes, I am fully braced to cry many times my last week here. I’m also really happy. Maybe I’ve learned to trust a little bit better than I did two years ago when I came here. I know the tears will come because I have formed so many friendships here. There are so many individuals that have become dear and treasured in my life, and I in theirs. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if I will get to see them again. I’m connected with some of them on social media, but I still don’t know which ones I will actually keep in touch with and which ones will fade away with the passing of time.

As I started talking about leaving a few months ago, the number one response I received was, “But you’re coming back, aren’t you?” Little sighs and shrugs came back to me as I told them I want to walk where God leads, and right now I’m not sure where that will be. Yes, I plan to come back and visit. Yes, I could come back for longer again. However at the moment I don’t get to have that answer.

I feel more open-handed than I did last time I relocated. Like instead of a screaming, laying on the floor fight about surrender, I’m in a quiet, though broken-hearted, conversation. I’m realizing that I can invest my limited resources in cursing what will be or in loving what I have.

I think the stakes might be a little higher, but I’m not as worried about what cards are going to be dealt, or even how I play them. I trust that as I keep listening to that quiet conversation day-by-day I’ll be guided and I’ll know what to do. It will certainly still be painful at times and I will still suffer losses, but at the end of the day it’s not my job to control the game.

Maybe this is what growing up feels like. Not necessarily paychecks or taxes or three-course meals but learning deeply, viscerally, that the sun keeps rising and setting, and as it does knowing how to walk in peace.

As the day draws nearer, I’m not angry this time. The overwhelming feeling I have is one of thankfulness. The last few years has been an amazing adventure, and I don’t think I deserved it. I’m happy for the fun and the opportunities, but more than that I’m thankful for the growth. I’m not the same person I was when I got off the plane, and I’m really happy about that. I have learned to a new measure the preciousness of every created person. I am (slightly) better at holding my tongue and doing what’s right. I have been loved passionately and welcomed warmly and been lead by the hand by people who owed me nothing.

I think a lot of us want to save the world, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but to paraphrase a friend of mine, “The adventure doesn’t need you. You need the adventure.”

Whatever I may have given or given up on this road is insignificant next to what I am receiving.

Here’s to growing up.