on saying Goodbye...

Cherished friends Heidi & Doug are moving away to Halifax this week and it’s got me thinking. We had them in for supper Saturday night and after they left I just couldn’t get to sleep. I thought of so many things…and my inability to say goodbye.

My mind was jumping all over the place as I attempted to fall asleep, very unsuccessfully, and I knew I needed to get up and “write it out” of me, but I also knew Zoë could get up at any hour and I NEEDED to get to sleep. But these thoughts have been lingering around in the recesses of my cloudy mind this week and I thought I’d grab a minute and get them out.

Being my over thinking self, I’ve even thought back to the first time I really remember saying goodbye. It was to Lester, my grade 1 boyfriend. My first kiss. Lester and I hung out all the time, playing ball on the front lawn as my neighbourhood girlfriends jeered at us from across the street, making mudpies and sneaking kisses behind the trailer in my backyard. I honestly remember very little more about Lester than that, other than he had blond hair, shaved close to his head and his Dad was in the army.

I remember walking to the end of the block (I wasn’t allowed to cross the street) and watching him run through the field to his house, and knowing I’d never see him again. His Dad had been posted somewhere else. I remember feeling something strange…but I didn’t have a word to describe it.

The next time I really remember saying Goodbye was in high school. I had become extremely close to my youth leader Christy, she was the big sister I had always wanted and I adored her. She and her husband left to go to Nova Scotia to Pastor at a church there and I was heart broken. I truly believed we would stay close, I would visit, we would be in constant contact but with the long distance time constraints, her busy life with a husband and then a newborn baby, it didn’t happen. I wrote letters, and made phone calls, she promised to do the same but it didn’t happen. I remember the night I realized whatever I had thought we had had was different now, over. I had called her long distance later in the evening, she had a 3 month old colicky baby and she didn’t have time to talk to me. She told me she’d call back as soon as she got him off to bed. I waited by the phone, she didn’t call.
My Mom came into my bedroom several times telling me I needed to go to bed, but I refused, believing she would keep her word and call. Finally around midnight, it became apparent she wasn’t going to call, and for the first time in over a year since she had left, it sunk in to me that I was the one trying to hold on to a relationship that didn’t really exist. I remember feeling something strange…but I didn’t have a word to describe it. I sobbed so hard I made myself sick that night.

Then it was going off to University. Again, when everyone was tearful and clingy as we made decisions to go our separate ways, I wasn’t. I was excited about a new tomorrow, an exciting future. It wasn’t until months had past and I was sick and lonely and scared, that I started to long for what I had with my old friends. But things were different, things and people had changed, we had moved on, I felt something strange, but I didn’t have a word to describe it….but I hadn’t said goodbye…

I can honestly say I made my way through my tumultuous years of university without making any lasting close friendships. I dated a bit, was friendly in classes, but scared for some reason, of really getting close to anyone, letting anyone know the real me, would they like me? I didn’t know how to do it, it felt dangerous somehow. As intimate relationships and closeness petered out of my life I became more and more desperate for it and would do completely unreasonable things to try and attain it. How I hurt others, how I hurt myself and remained alone, so desperate for connection.

Then in walked Heidi. She started on as supervisor at the Drycleaner where I was working solely to fund my drinking while I went to school. I remember, I always wore a ball cap then, lurking behind it, some sort of protection I guess. Before showing up for my shift one day I made a particularly distressed walk downtown, I arrived still distressed to work. She walked up to me and flipped my visor on my cap, I don’t remember what she said to me but I remember the look in her eyes, she really looked at me. If I’d only known that gesture was only the beginning of exposing myself to someone and becoming open to receive love again.

I watched her intensely. Daily people would come in and she would have meaningful conversations with them, she would really talk to them about the things going on in their lives, she would joke and laugh and tease… she interested me. Of course I had no idea she was a Christian or I would have likely written her off altogether. She and Doug invited me over to their house for supper one night, I don’t know why I accepted. I remember on the drive out to their place questioning my sanity, wondering if I should ask to be let out on the side of the road… and that began a long journey for me, back to God, toward friendships, to my husband and my gift, Zoë.

I have since attempted and made strides towards authentic relationships, Chad proving so immensely trustworthy with “myself”. All parts, even then ones I hate or find shameful straight up from the beginning he wanted nothing less and loved me inspite, despite and for, it all. Often I’ve not realized the potential some of the relationships in my life had, because of my own fear and insecurities until they too moved on. I remember going out for coffee with Krista before she headed off to Newfoundland. We talked and laughed, I dropped her off at her apartment and said goodbye, after all I hadn’t know her all that well and we’d just started hanging out a bit that past year. Pulling out of the driveway it happened again, that feeling so hard to describe and I cried for a friendship I hadn’t been brave enough to pursue.

How scary it is to bare yourself, your not-always-so-pretty-self for someone to accept or reject, but how freeing to be accepted, as is, no strings or expectations attached, just loved.

How do you say goodbye to the person who sat on the end of the church pew so you could hide in the middle of the row Sunday after Sunday? Who let you cry such snotty cries all over her suede vest? Who introduced you to music that would challenge you to change while you smoked pack after pack of cigarettes?

What do you say to the people who let you sleep more nights on their living room couch, then you did in your own apartment? Who taught you that if you ate enough seasalt chips and drank enough Pepsi you could let out an amazing belch? Who made you suffer through endless reruns of All in the Family? Who pushed your hair out of your face when you tried to hide behind masses of curls?

How do you say goodbye to the people who walked over to get you and bring you back to their place on a rainy Christmas eve so you wouldn’t spend it alone. Who forgave you after you lied and manipulated and hurt them in a desperate attempt to be needy enough they wouldn’t leave you? Who knew when they needed to let go and let God have His way in your life? Who were so honest and real and unpretentious, God’s love and availability for those who wanted Him was evident in their everyday?

Where are the words to describe your feelings for the people who love you despite it all. Who know where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and see what God is doing and accept you through it all? The people you can just “be” around, and know it’s ok, they don’t expect anything else. How do you tell these people you’ve taken for granted… Goodbye?

I don’t mean to be dramatic. I know we’ll stay in contact. I know the emails, the pictures will continue. But I also know it will be different now. The doorbell won’t ring and Heidi be standing there to take my crying baby from my arms so I can take a shower. I won’t walk through Kingsplace and see Doug having a coffee and sit down and in an instant have a deep conversation about something meaningful. I won’t be able to call Heidi up and just drop by and go for a walk. I won’t be able to look over on a Sunday morning and see them there worshiping the God that gave me life, gave them new life. They are my family, and now it will be different.

I AM excited to see what God has in store for them as they head out. I am so comforted to know that God has their best interest and future in His plans as they follow Him, and that His plans are even better, yes much better than what mine might be for them.

So instead of Goodbye, when the words just won’t come… can I say thank you? Thank you for being a part of my life. For walking with me this far. Thank you for seeing the good in me when it was really hard to see, and for sticking it out long enough to see the good and God living in me, in my life, my husband, my baby girl. Thank you.