Goodbyes

I should be packing right now. But instead, I'm blogging. I keep thinking about how packing means I'm moving. Moving means saying goodbye. And even though I'm ready to make some changes, I'm sick of saying goodbye. The last two weeks of my time in Provo have been and will be full of goodbyes. It started with the last day of my job at TURN Community Services. That was a bitter-sweet day. Even though I was ready to pass things on to the next Coordinator, I was definitely not ready to say goodbye to my clients. I have given so much to the people at the East Bay day program, and it was very difficult to leave them. On my last day we had an activity at the park, watching folk dancers. This is a performance that I always enjoy, and this year was fun, but I had quite a few moments that I had to catch myself in order to not cry. It's amazing how much you can come to love those you serve. I love these people...all of them, and I miss them so much.

The next goodbye started on my birthday when I saw my "little friend," Nate, for the last time before his mission. Really it started on March 27 when he opened his mission call to Ghana. Since that day, I have imagined how I would feel when he left. The day of his farewell came, and I thought it was going to be hard. I was right...I cried through his entire talk. It was absolutely incredible and I was amazed at the strength and power of his testimony. Tuesday, my birthday, was my in-person goodbye. I thought that would be hard...and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't terrible. A few tears came after I left and read the letter he wrote me, but that was all. The real emotion came Wednesday with the final text from Nate, and basically continued until Friday when I was sure he had arrived in Ghana. I don't talk to or see Nate every day, which means that I have gone much longer than these last few days without talking to him, but that doesn't matter. The fact is that I can't talk to him, I can't see him, and I won't be able to for two years. And I miss him.

I am in the process of saying goodbye to four years at Carriage Cove. That includes saying goodbye a lot: to many friends I have made at various times throughout the last four years, to my incredible bishopric and their wives who have done so much for me over the last three and a half years (since they were called), and to a great complex that I have enjoyed living at, including my room which I love. Up until now, I have felt very excited to move and change and start over, but it's finally setting in that this is the end of this chapter of my life and it's proving to be harder than I thought it would be. I have great memories of this place and these few years, and I will miss these times.

All of these things are hard goodbyes by themselves, but the fact that they are all happening at the same time has been so difficult. But come Thursday night/Friday morning, I will be done. No more goodbyes for a while and I can start looking forward to the new adventures that are coming.