What Holds Me To The Earth

Something happens when you have to say goodbye to something or someone you love deeply before leaving for a long time. It reminds you what  you are leaving behind. It reminds you how much life is going to change.

I spent Labor Day weekend at my favorite place in the world. It was wonderful. I could hardly have asked for a better weekend – perhaps if my tailbone had never been dislocated to begin with, or if I’d managed to get some quality cuddling in. Nevermind. No use to dwell on the things that didn’t happen when I think of how much I enjoyed myself. And yet, it was in a way bittersweet, because in moving across the country I remove the certainty that I will be able to return there in good time.

I made sure I said goodbye to the place properly before I left. Goodbyes are very important to me, as they might be to anyone who has gone through a big loss. I made sure to visit every specific spot I have loved over the past fifteen or so years, feel every inch of beauty that looked at me from the back of a black-and-white caterpillar, a tree, an enormous standing stone. I cried in the dark for what I was giving up, even knowing that it will still be here and I can always come back if I choose to do so.

It is hard because it momentarily sapped my desire to move to California. I could not even imagine leaving. The weekend made me want to cling all the more for the new connections, the people who could become soulmates, the ones I will now not have a chance to get to know better without a monumental effort on someone’s part. Now, I remind myself that there are plenty of people in the Bay area I can meet, and that this is something I chose, and the resistance fades.

In the end, I’m sure it’s better to have connections like this one, things that I find almost impossible to leave, because otherwise I would never need to look outside of myself. There would be nothing to keep me from just floating away.

through the birthing stone

~ by plaidlylush on September 9, 2009.