18 April 2005

Goodbyes begin

When are you leaving? That's the way many conversations begin lately. It's a theme. The date of departure has been a vague undefinable point in an unknown future for many months. When it is nebulous, it's less threatening, less real. But that's changing.

Tonight was the second of the goodbyes. I've been avoiding them. I keep telling people, "Oh, we'll see you before we leave, don't worry."

I do mean it, but I'm also trying to avoid the unpleasantness of saying farewell to people that have significance and value to me. It's easier to just fade away, but that's not the way it will happen. The significance has gone both ways and so my friends and comrades won't allow me to quietly disappear. I love the time with the people, so it isn't the goodbyeing that is the problem. The departure is the problem.

Like a potted plant, I have grown happily in my snug corner of Kansas. Now as I prepare to leave and cross the ocean, my roots that have intertwined with many people here are being pulled and torn. I have to be separated from these dear people. While there is some tearing, I get to take pieces of them with me and I hope I am leaving some of myself behind too.

So I begin this blogging in order to sustain and nurture what is here. Yet I recognize that all our relationships will change and mutate into something different as the distance changes our circumstances.

Vive la difference.
(hmmm, I think that's French and I'm suppose to be learning Spanish....)

8 comments:

  1. Come on now, I want to think happy thoughts when I blog, not sad ones. But I am sure there will be lots of fun ones from you in the future and I am glad that you took time to open the blog to continue to nurture relationships here while you're across the ocean. I know that golden and I were just talking on Sunday how we feel closer to everyone now that we are blogging! Speaking as someone who has moved away from family and friends I can share with you that as the relationships do change the ones built to last will continue to grow and bloom! Besides now days with all the technology we'll probably be web caming you in for a game of wise and otherwise before you know it!

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  2. As we all keep in touch by blogging it will almost seem like you never left. You will still be in on all the jokes and stories that go on in our personal lives. You don't have to wait to know what's going on with all of us and we will know what's happening with you. Hope that was a happy thought.

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  3. Just think, if it weren't for your moving sale....I wouldn't have this great pair of Land's End sandals! Besides, you are making more friends and leaving more of your legacy to those you meet along the way. Your blogger buddies are right--with technology today, you will still be as close as you ever were. T and I are living proof of that, having always lived long distance from each other. Of course, if that still isn't enough to encourage you...you could always envision yourself on a boat with Hudson Taylor!!

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  4. Okay, that must have sounded much more depressing than it felt...really I'm okay. But I do appreciate everyone's encouraging words -- that does help!
    D.

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  5. I think that it wasn't a "depressing" blog so much as it was sad, because we don't want to think of you as gone. You definately are leaving pieces of you here as you have affected so many lives through the ministry that you and darwin have already started. You are fun to be with add spice to life and make everyone who meets you feel at ease. But now you get to be our "cool missionary friends in Spain!" Was that as sappy as it felt? Oh well, what can I say, I am a sap!

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  6. Hi. I found your blog from your comment on the Coffeegirl blog at WOTH. My husband and I are heading to Madrid in August to work at Evangelical Christian Academy (Do you know of it?). Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. I hope to take some time and read all about your experiences. This post, especially, sounds exactly like me - with the not wanting to say our goodbyes. :)

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  7. Keri - yes I know ECA and I'll be attending their graduation on Friday night! Send me your email and I can give you my two cents about being in Madrid.

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