Balancing act

Transition in general is a good thing. Switching jobs, moving to a new house, even just rearranging your room... New things are good. I have always said I like change. So I didn't think the huge transition about to happen in my life would affect me horribly. I'm (still hopefully) moving to Korea in September. That fact alone doesn't really scare me much. I'm very excited about being somewhere new, meeting all new people, finding a different community, all of those "good new" things. What I'm not loving is the work-up to saying goodbye to the people I'm closest to in the world. I hadn't pictured this moment yet in my mental idea of what this would all be like. The looming dread of saying goodbye to people who I really have no idea when I'll see again is scaring the heck out of me.

I got to see Leigh this weekend, which is wonderful. We don't see each other often, but we've always been within an hour and a half of each other and that's comforting. I like to imagine that being across the world and pretending we could visit if we wanted will still be somewhat similar to being in the same state.

One of the things I love most about my friends is that they are all just as adventurous as me. We understand each other in that way. Because that's just who we are, I knew we wouldn't all live near each other forever. I wanted the best of both worlds though, somehow, and I always just imagined it would be OK when the day came. I guess I had it all planned out in the back of my mind... I would get to go be adventurous (married to the love of my life, of course) and at least some of my friends would be somewhere nearby, maybe in a neighboring country or even in the same one. At one point, I had imagined Leigh and Eric and me and my husband working in Honduras together as a real possibility. But that's just not how life is today. I've said this before, but I know what I'm passionate about, and I'm glad I'm sure. I just kind of wish I wasn't the only one because this is getting harder than I expected.

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I'm back. I just went with Bri and laid in the pool for a while and now I'm in my swimsuit on the couch with half-wet hair eating a peach and cheesecake snow cone. It's a little harder to feel sad about my life at the moment.

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Some thoughts after talking to friends:

Caleb and I hung out last night for the first time in a week or so. He's always making me realize I need to read more Eliot. He explains the deeper sentiments in it so well and recites the best lines, and it actually makes me interested. Reading Eliot on my own has never really excited me until I read "Burnt Norton" a few months ago. I think it's appropriate now too. Here's the line that first caught me:

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

We are here no matter where we thought we would be or where we have been. That's sometimes SUCH a hard thing to accept. Accepting what's happening in life can be such a struggle for me. Really accepting it. I don't even think I know what it means to accept something rough or painful.

Which brings me to the thought I had after talking to Jenni a few minutes ago. I knew I'd been feeling like I'm standing, balancing on the top of a tall pole, trying not to fall but unsure how to stay on it or how to get down safely. But now, it makes sense why I feel that way. I don't know how to move on from the "deferred hope" that I have right now. Usually when I feel this way, I've already got another plan in front of me - another guy, to be honest. But I don't have that now. And I don't want it. I'm glad I've grown and am making good decisions in this regard, but now I don't know what steps to take to move on. So I'm out on a ledge I've never been on before. This is so new I can't even keep my metaphors straight. A friend of mine says, "Time and God are the only things we can be sure of" -- that just came to mind. It's true, and that's what I'm going to lean on.