moving forward

By Mary

My heart is whirling through a thousand different feelings and the rain streaming down outside matches the showers on my cheeks.

I have a hard time with saying goodbye, with letting go, with moving on.

My mind wanders back to the evening one year and forty-eight days ago when Alanna and I stood in Denver International Airport with our families, tickets in our hands, bags already checked, not wanting to move towards security, give that last hug or say goodbye.

I'd already had my last phone call with my boyfriend, hanging up with tears in my eyes and wondering as I turned off my phone, leaving it on my nightstand and following my parents out to the car, just how we would do with four months of next to nothing. Long distance was already hard.

And then standing in the airport with my parents and Alanna's family who are like my own...it hurt so much to leave the ones you spend every day with and know and love and care for.

Four months isn't long. Six months isn't either. We've sent friends off to college and out to start new careers and through those goodbyes I've realized the world doesn't end. Not everything changes. God is still in control and life can be happy. I don't worry about our friendships lasting through it all. I know they're stronger than that.

What hurts when saying goodbye is the way my heart feels in knowing the people I love most today, won't be right next to me tomorrow.

And for me, what hurts today is not just thinking of Alanna and my two other friends going so far away. It's the thought of being so far from my babies. Of anyone else showing them their love while I can't. It brings back some of the feelings of guilt for ever leaving them in the first place.

I know this time how Alanna is setting herself up to love and be hurt. She knows it. And I'm proud of her for going anyway. I don't envy that. But part of my heart cries for South Africa, just as part of it cries for Colorado and part of it feels at home here. And here right now is where I belong.

I can't live in the time that has passed. Holding it tight won't bring it back. I don't want it back because that means I wouldn't have today. Today is God's gift to me. And I'm learning still and most likely always will be learning to take that gift and move forward with it...even with my heart scattered all across the world.