Heartbreak is not what I feel as I announce it. Excitement, pure excitement, joy, and rightness. Should one be more nervous, questioning, and terrified to move away from all they know?
When my mom had us, my twin brother and I, it was late at night in a Rockford hospital. They cut her open, they pulled my brother out first, they pulled me out second. This was where I was born, a hospital in northern Illinois. That was where fourteen years of my life was contently lived. And that was where 8(will be 9) years of my life was uncontently lived.
It is easy, to say I feel a calling and then I must inevitably, follow this calling. It is easier still, to say when my friends, who had so graciously offered up their hearts-and their own home to me, when they moved away I realized my heart had gone with them-or in effect, they had gone to where my heart had needed to go the whole time. Perhaps it is destiny, that called them back to where they came, and perhaps, once schooling is over, I will feel the same need to return to where I happened to be spit out into this world, where I happened to have my first breath. But I find that quite unlikely. Their home has always been my home, before I even knew it. When she told me she felt their ministry coming to a close, how she felt their time where I had breathed first was over, I felt a settled correctness. I didn’t feel scared to loose them, they could not be lost by space. But they went to where my heart didn’t even know it needed to go.
But holding onto things after they are gone is not a sign of how much we loved them, it is our inability to let them go. It is our nature, for we believe that good things should never end, whether we realize it consciously or not. Just as a child, we have a wonderful time at a playground do not want to leave, we throw tantrums we scream and fight and cry, so are we when God tells us to let go of the good. He is teaching us, over and over, that some day, we will not have to give up the good at all, and that it will freely be ours for eternity.
But letting go of Illinois, (while I have yet to do it in its entirety) has not been letting go of a good thing. It had felt like getting rid of an old thing that one once found joy in, but now it being around so long has become burdensome. Like when you are a child and you insist on bringing your toy with you to the zoo. You find joy in hugging your little buddy for awhile, but then it becomes a burden, and you soo. Tire of holding onto it and remembering it when you set it down. This is the moment most children will ask the parent to hold it for them, it is in that moment that the parent must either take the burden from the child, or, tell the little one to suck it up and live with the consequences of the decisions they made. Both are learning opportunities, but only with the right words.
Am I sad to leave those who share my DNA, of course. To say I will miss them is of course a possibility. Let me tell you, the fact my apathy is there does not mean I do not love them. It means they are different, and that I refuse to let the blood coursing through my veins and what it is related to stop me from living the way God has designed for me. I have formed apathy, I believe, over the years due to many things. The first time I realized I had my apathy for my family was when my eldest brother was hurting me. He would punch, hit, argue and degrade me. Words that should not be told to another human being were spoke to and about me. I do not want you to think I am playing victim here, but, there is something to say, my parents saw how he was hurting me, and while words and screams were in abundance, actual action to make him stop was lacking. As I cobbled my Boots if Insecurities that would trudge me down a road I never wanted, it was a preverbal ground work for my self abuse and neglect later on. When my sister got sick, and I started becoming anxious, depressed, and when no one seemed to notice or care, that is another time my apathy grew. It grew into not just a tiny seed, but a flower, a flower in my chest. My parents, sister, friends, no one needed to know how I hurt because I believed I didn’t matter. My life, if hurting, would be an inconvenience to them. I had to be strong, I had to be a rock. The boots were heavy, and they wore at my feet. My insecurities were not due to a single person, but I can say a single person would have made it better. No one saw, whether because they didn’t want to, or because they honestly didn’t know where to look, no one tried to help in my family. What empathy I had ever received would be turned into mockery or insults later. I was left to myself, to brood, to hurt myself, dig myself deeper into my hole alone. Because my family didn’t know, or were too busy digging their own holes.
For Flying Out Loud 