Leaving...

This post is two weeks late…but honestly, this is the first time I’ve been able to put any words to my feelings about the beginning of the end of our time here in Abilene. Sunday night, two weeks ago, SM and I finished moving out of the Residence Director’s apartment in the dorm where we’ve lived for two years. It was a busy, long, dreadfully tiring weekend…as all “moving weekends” are. Never mind that we only moved about 10 feet away into the Assistant’s apartment at the dorm (our new temporary home until we leave Abilene at the end of July), it was still a loooong weekend.

Late Sunday night, while lying on the bed in the new apartment and resting for a few minutes before finishing up the last few details, I stopped thinking about all of the packing and moving and started to think about how empty and bare everything was. The tea-colored carpet and sand-dollar colored walls were a vast expanse of emptiness, and that odd echo that belongs to empty rooms had crept in throughout the day as we emptied things out. I realized that I’d been keeping myself busy so that I wouldn’t feel sad about what we were doing. I’d been trying to tell myself, “It’s just an apartment…just a place that we’ve been living for a few years.” But that Sunday night, the memories of the past two years ambushed me, and I was surprised and overwhelmed by my deep sense of loss. In reality, that place has been HOME to us, and I hope to a few others as well. So much of what we have been doing for the last two years as we’ve been learning how to live and share Life with others is linked to our experiences in that house…my staff meetings, our church family, mentoring group, prayer groups, Christ family meals, playoff hockey games watched with SM's hockey buddies, years two and three of our marriage…all of these things happened in that place. So much of who we are becoming has been formed within those walls, and shaped by the people that we’ve been blessed to share life with during our time here.

Here’s a smattering of the memories that came to mind as I laid there on the bed: Brian and Holly flirting with each other from across the room during church family meetings….Travis screaming and bouncing on the couch while watching hockey games…wonderful, amazing times of worship and prayer….me “pouncing” on Bonnie during one of our staff meetings… SM's honesty with me at a really challenging point in our marriage...an endless stream of dorm residents that came with roommate concerns, or to go to the ER, or to borrow a thermometer or a sewing machine, or to tell me that their toilet was exploding, or wouldn’t stop flushing…being gathered around our candle-lit table sharing meals and communion…the staff gathered around SM and I, laying hands on us to pray for and to bless us…decorating our Christmas tree with Anna and Jeff…”Muffin Nights” with Houston and Kelly…wrapping presents for my nephews with Alicia…drinking tea with anyone that ever came to visit us…playing “Scum” around the dining room table…Brian and Ron going a little wild when we busted out the cards... praying and snuggling on the couch with SM... Thanksgiving dinner with my family and anyone else that we could find to share it with…finding “Smoochy” after he jumped out of the bowl…too many all-nighters…lingerie showers, birthday parties, celebrations for no particular reason and too many other memories to list. A whole lot of laughter, prayer, songs, tears, hugs, and even a few bodily functions (the culprits shall go nameless…you know who you are!!!).

Even now, as I write this, the deep sense of loss has returned. I thought I was at a place where I could finally write about this without crying, but I was wrong. We won’t even leave Abilene for another month and a half, but my heart knows that we are leaving and I am sad. It is time for us to go and I’m looking forward to the next part of our adventures, but for tonight, I have to be honest.

I’m finding the parting much more difficult than I had imagined.