loss & magic
Why do I feel sadness and anxiety after such a lovely, wonderful, filling evening with friends?
We shared stories, laughter, feels, celebrations, and commiserations. We shared delicious fall food, and we cooked, baked, and presented decadent treats for each other. We talked about the future and the past and what’s happening right now and how far we’ve come. We hugged and appreciated and supported. It was a blast and a night of warmth and nourishment, in so many ways. Savory.
I think I’m coming down from it and quite tired from a giant day and from the high energy of our night together. All the laughter and noise and fast talking. All the feelings.
Big love. Also, a lot is changing for all of us right now. These are our two best pals, and they’re moving out of the state within a month and a half, and it’s going to leave such a big hole. SUCH a gaping hole. A space where something was — where something is meant to be — and no longer is. A fullness that is missed, leaving behind emptiness, loneliness, and longing.
I am happy for their lives and adventures and future. I’m proud of their growing and planning. I’m excited for how we will still manage to be friends from afar… (I hope, and I have fear too because I refuse to allow us to all just be separated by distance, drift away, stop trying, and not keep our friendship alive.)
But in spite of all that happy pride and adventure and growth — I am trying to be a good and supportive friend, after all — I am just so, so sad they’re leaving.
The end or transition of one astonishing thing does not have to be a loss or a detriment. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Yet maybe it is. This feels like SUCH a loss. I am feeling it and beginning to grieve it already.
We can’t know yet. Maybe this new season — this pivoting evolution, turning chapter, and transition — will bring unexpected gifts and delights. New levels and experiences to our friendship. Maybe we won’t be going backwards. Maybe it won’t all be loss.
I think I am feeling sad for all these reasons and partly due to my exhaustion and the overwhelm I feel at lots of things coming up.
I feel sad because of the nostalgic, unwanted end of something precious… our bestest friends living a few minutes away and sharing so many amazing memories. I feel overwhelmed because this is a lot to carry and so much to coordinate and so many plans and ambitions and hopes and dreams in the near future. Jake and I both work full time and are trying to figure lots of things out. We have so many trips and projects and demands and wishes on the horizon. This is good and stretching and a blessing. This is also a lot!
I think I feel frantic rather than peaceful after leaving this marvelous Pals Dinner because it feels inside me like The End of something dear, like I can sense the clock is winding down and time is running out, so something in me is desperately clinging already, longing for some sense of security and safety. Any morsel to hold onto and make last. Anything else I can do to freeze time, or if that’s impossible, at least to stuff it as full and loved and together as we can. I am so happy to be together, and yet the happiness in tinged with the nostalgic, mournful, grasping realization that soon we won’t be. This is hard to bear.
The sadness is in response to the feeling of loss. The frantic anxiety, on the other hand, may be in response to my resistance to the feeling of loss. I am so sad and uncomfortable and not wanting to experience this hole left behind very soon, so I am spinning my wheels to make arrangements, plan the travel, make it work, find ways to enjoy it, hold onto some solidity, build some guarantees and certainty, grasp for control and security…
Tonight, I can’t know yet. Maybe, maybe not. These things are not all my job, and knowing all isn’t my job, and having answers and being in solid, stable control isn’t my job. Que sera, sera. I don’t have to cling. I can let go. I am strong enough to bear this sadness and feel it and let it be. The waves can pass through me, and I will still be here. I can stand and watch — feel, really, as the tearing sound can be heard echoing through all the corners of my life — the hole rip open, I can turn my face towards it instead of away, I can honor it and keep moving forward. I will dance and love. I can find lightness in this and discover a path through. I will have adventure, surprise, and growth. I can. I do not have to reach, desperate for security, because everything is already okay. The little stuff will be figured out or will resolve itself, and the big stuff — we feel. We love. We keep going. Together.
Everything’s gonna be okay.
xoxo ❤️
