It occurred to me as I was hiking up an airplane walkway today that sometimes in life, things happen too fast for processing. Not every moment is meant for full understanding; sometimes the best memories are made when you don’t try and make sense out of everything that is happening. When you open your heart to life and it happens, it can take you by surprise – and it doesn’t apologize, either.
Today has been one of those days that had me breathing. I didn’t have time to think today, didn’t want time to think, but thought anyway, on a last-minute flight north, in a rental car shuttle passing through country I know, on a familiar road that holds too many memories…
I grew here, grew up here, knew God here, lived life here. This is where I learned to step out on my own, to be independent and as self-sufficient as I could be. And now I’m here, without my husband or my babies, alone again, trying to remember, not sure if I even want to.
I’ve been on the verge of tears all day, as if a wound is tearing open and I’ve no idea what it is, but I want to cry for all the memories, all the life, all the loss. I thought I’d lived beyond it all, and yet here it is, the same light, the same roads, the same traffic, the same trees, the same blue in the Virginia sky, and I’ve changed, but everything that was part of me then is part of me now.
I cannot possibly hold all of this, and yet I’m here to keep my eyes open, to experience something with a friend that goes so deep I’m scared to feel it with her, to hold the memories for her that she doesn’t want to lose.
I’ve been to eternity and back today, I think, dwelling full in the now, thinking in forever, chattering about nothing and everything at intervals. I have run in the rain, flown by myself, kissed my children goodbye, and committed to something I didn’t plan. I’ve carried my own bags, talked to complete strangers, lived in my own skin and forgot worrying about it.
I can say what is today. For the rest… I don’t know. Maybe the pictures will tell.
I need to sleep. It has been a whirlwind of a day.
If I know you, the pictures will tell it all.
This is the beauty that can happen when you write out of the exhausted places. What’s most real in the moment comes out and touches others in a way you never planned. I know you are home now and have found your place again with your own family, but this moment of uprootedness touch me.