People

June 20
More good-byes. Yesterday we went to see some friends and former coworkers and said farewell to them. In a little while we will be going across town to see another friend. This is really reminding me of how many wonderful people we have come to know here. It is sometimes easy to take people for granted, but saying so many good-byes in such a concentrated period of time really makes me aware that I am leaving something valuable behind. I never thought I would feel sad at all when I was preparing to leave here. I used to think about how wonderful it would be to know that I was leaving and to be actually getting ready to go. Sadness never entered my mind as a potential part of that process. But here I am and here it is. It is, however, gratifying to know that some good things came out of my time here. All too often I have felt as if I were wasting my time and doing nothing of any value. At other times I felt that I was being wasted because I was doing so little and not even close to what I was capable of doing. But in this last week, I can see that I was building relationships and that is important. And that makes me happy. So it hasn’t been a total loss.
I’m kind of tired, so I am hoping to take tomorrow off. We’ll see how that goes. It would be nice to just hang out for a day after church and to give myself permission to lounge lazily around for a whole afternoon and evening! If I can just ignore the boxes and totes that are all over the place, I might be able to pull it off!
We got rid of more stuff today--we put all the kitchen stuff that we can’t take on Freecycle as a batch and off it went. That is good. We will be passing stuff along at an accelerated clip for the next several days.
We have our first two stops confirmed. We’ll be in The Dalles, Oregon first, and then we will go to the home of an old friend from grad school for a few days. That will be fun. I am looking forward to catching up with her. I last saw her a few years ago when she and her husband drove over the hill from Ashland, where they making their annual visit to see the Oregon Shakespeare Festival offerings. We went to lunch and spent the afternoon together. After leaving all of the people we will miss so much here, it will be nice to see a friend from the past. It’s a good reminder that sometimes people never leave our lives completely!

Celebration

Today was our going away celebration at church. We had an opportunity to share our story and update people on our progress and to accept people’s good wishes and blessings. In fact, my friend, Karen, whose website is listed in our links list on the side of this blog, wrote us a beautiful blessing that we will carry with us as we travel. And we had a potluck with excellent food and a chance for good conversation with (F)friends. It was a bittersweet experience because although we will be there for one more Sunday next week, some people will not be there. So today was the last day for some things. Though we will see some of these people again, the context will be different. For me, it was a reminder that this is really happening. We really are leaving. It hardly seems possible that after everything we have been through in the past five years, it really is coming to an end. It reminds me of the lines from the T.S.Eliot poem that go something like, “to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” That is what this is--both an end and a beginning. I am excited for the beginning, since I have waited so long for it. But I am also--surprisingly--sad about the end because I will miss many people here. I will be in touch via email, of course, but I will miss seeing them on Sundays, spending time over a leisurely lunch or cup of tea and having interesting conversations, and just spending time together. It won’t be the same. But I am glad to have had this time with these people and knowing them will enrich my life whether I am here or not.