Your Story

I’ve always been hyper aware of goodbyes, I mean that might go without saying because the kind of finality that is paired with them makes you extremely conscious of your own mortality. About how anything in the world and then some can happen in an instant, and being in such close proximity with all of the people that you imagine by your side when your dreams come to fruition or ultimately when they are shattered makes it less prevalent. It always makes you think about the past times in your life where you felt like you were leaving everything that you’ve ever known to move on to the unknown. It’s honestly really scary, and I don’t actually think that the scariest part is leaving who helped build you into who you are in that moment. I really believe the scariest moment is thinking about yourself finding a new team, a new group of people who have no obligation to love you but see you like they see the most important things in their life. Priceless, impalpable it doesn’t entirely make sense and in most cases never will. People always talk about how we can’t choose our family, but we do all the time from such an early age, even when we first start school at four or five years old. We don’t even realize it, but we are taking applications while simultaneously applying for the same job. A surrogate family that when the people who were supposed to be your primary source of unconditional love fail to do so, step up to the plate. It doesn’t hit nearly as hard in the early stages because we don’t know enough to be afraid of losing someone, well if we are lucky that’s the case. So when you move on it is a clean break. Middle school and especially highschool give you the impression that your life will end in its entirety when you leave the people that you have come to love. As we grow older we realize that the story of our lives isn’t necessarily a picture book filled with quaint lessons about life, love and friendship. Coupled with the images of a life well lived. It would be great if that was the case but ultimately the story of our life is a chapter by chapter slow burner. Where lessons that seemingly could be told in minutes are drug out and riddled with pain, triumph and sometimes redemption. Not every chapter in our life features different characters, but eventually the story has to mature and that comes with an ever changing cast and crew that culminates in the telling of your life. With that being said, at the same time you are also starring in other people’s life stories, it can kind of be overwhelming when you think about it. Being an integral part of someone else’s masterpiece while at the same time writing your own? It is a great load to bare when you really think about it, but with all that being said the process no matter how messy has a kind of beautiful symmetry to it, that can’t be easily replicated. I left my hometown when I was twenty two years old and along with that left behind the people who had been my biggest fans and also my worst critics, but all with love. As I make friends and write this new chapter, every now and then I think back to all the families that I had adopted growing up along with all that I had become a part of. It does sadden me some to think about the inside jokes and the late nights talking about how nobody was going to mean more to anybody than we did to each other at that moment. Knowing what it’s like to be part of those moments is breathtaking, but in no way does it compare to what it feels like to long for it. So as your story goes on you will always be playing both sides, creating and living and it will definitely make reading it worthwhile. Whoever is with you in the closing chapters, would have never made the cut if it wasn’t for the family you had when life was just a picture book, and that is what makes the goodbyes worth it. In every way.