A Note on Goodbyes

Beginning a few days ago, my husband and I, along with the help of the most wonderful friends and family, packed up the contents of our first home, held a rousing farewell fete, made many tearful goodbyes, and drove across seven states to our new home in Kansas City, Missouri. Saying goodbye to our loving, giving, creative, and inspiring friends, as well as my beloved family was difficult. To me, life is relationships. Life is people. My life in Gainesville was beautiful because of the people in it. I realized that saying goodbye to my friends and family is like forgiveness, in that it has to be worked out over time, even after you have said "goodbye." You have to work it out and live it out in your heart and in the things you do each day. To me, saying goodbye is not a finite thing, but a shifting and molding of relationships. This goodbye did not signal the end of these friendships and relationships. I do acknowledge that they will change in form, appearance, and frequency. I have no doubts, however, that I will be able to commune with my kindred spirits whether we talk and see each other regularly or rarely. Each relationship becomes part of your being, and I am a different, and a better person because of the people I lived my life with in Florida. My heart is aching in the background. But it is because I love and am loved so well. I believe, as Anne Shirley does, that there are ever so many kindred spirits in this world, even individuals who you wouldn't think so just by looking at them, and I am ready to find them in this new place I now call home.