I won't go into to the rhymes and reasons. Let's just say that the timing was apparent.
"I am moving away."
Many people have said those exact words a few times in their life. Now it is my turn and I hate it. I love where I am going and I love what I am leaving behind. Besides all the planning and packing, their is a plethora of emotion...but the hardest one to experience is the "last" good-bye.
I know that all this emotion will eventually pass away. Everyone's life will go on and a new staus quo will be created. It is very much like giving birth, except that I have the choice about how much emotion I want to experience. Emotional pain is different that way...one can choose to not experience it. You cannot choose to escape physical pain, but what about emotional suffereing?
I know a lot of people, including myself that will go to great lengths to avoid the pain of loss. The ways to do it are numerus. Lots and lots of literature is out there on how to "deal" with emotional pain. After all, isn't avoiding pain and seeking pleasure what we are wired to do as humans?
I had my last day of work yesterday. Not only was I ending a career, but leaving some very dear co-workers. Everyone I said "good-bye" to had their own way of doing so. But the one I will always remember was the one who deeply embraced me for a long time. I could hear him swallowing his tears, as the tears flowed from my eyes. Reflecting on that memory today, the tears are streaming again. Even though I have so much to get done today, I want to embed this "painful" memory deep into my soul.
Grief seems to be so entangled with Love, that I cannot tell the difference. Jesus promised us life to the fullest. I always saw a "full" life as meaning full of the "good" stuff. I am beginning to think that He may have meant the fullness of our emotional life as well.
I have some more "last" goodbyes to walk through and I am not looking forward to them. Our world is too busy for all this exhausting emotion... and yet emotion is the only way to know the depth of our connections.
There is another emotion that is a "choice". And that is gratitude. I have missed many opportunities to thank so many of the people in my life. And how do I thank a city? I don't know what that even means.
All I know is "Good-bye Spokane... and thank you."
