Leaving

Well, it's official. I have finished my first year at Taylor University. I am now a sophomore. Now, admittedly, I should be rejoicing, but I'm not. In some ways, I am happy. I finished one year of college. That in itself is an achievement. But there's something else that overwhelms the miniscule feeling if victory. It is the feeling of loss.

This year, I made quite a few friends. Some of them were freshmen. Some were graduating seniors. All of them I will miss. Especially those graduating. While I have some assurances that I might see some of them again, it still feels like in some way, I'm losing my friends, like I'm losing a piece of myself.

It hurts. I see my friends go, most of them still living in the Midwest, while I have to pack up and return to Colorado. I feel the separation ache. The pain is too mellow, too slightly expected to cut or stab. It throbs instead.

Facing this pain, which is all too familiar I must confess, I find myself asking, does saying goodbye ever get to the point where it doesn't hurt, at least as a college student?


Does it ever get any easier?

I wanted to go and ask a professor or one of the seniors this question, but I never did. I never asked while I had them here to tell me. However, after slightly stewing on this question for a few hours, I discovered the best person to ask this question would be myself.

Now before you think I'm getting pompous or arrogant, let me tell you why I think that.

I'm a military brat, and I have never lived in any one place longer than 4 years. You say goodbye often that way. For the four years I went to high school, I lived at a summer camp. Every single I would say goodbye at least twice. Once to the first month's summer volunteers, next to the second month's volunteers and the paid staff.

I also graduated High School a year ago, almost to the day. I had many goodbyes to say then. I had to say goodbye to my parents when they dropped me off at college.

Suffice to say, I've had to say a lot of goodbyes in my life.So, if you all are still interested in my answer, here it is.

It never gets easier to say goodbye. In fact, the more you invest yourself in your friends and the deeper the bonds you make, the harder it gets to say goodbye.

I say this from personal experience. I missed my friends from camp a little, But as I look forward to the summer, the more I wish I had my friends with me physically. The more I long to have my close friends near.

So this summer might be hard. I have to go back to good friends, but I'm leaving some of the best friends I've ever had.

However, before my heart begins to despair, and thus make me begin my summer the crappiest way I could, I need to remember something,

Now, forgive me for sounding cheesy, but the truth is the truth, Jesus is the friend who will never leave me. Never. I can't move away from Him. He won't graduate and be forced to move on past college and thus past me. He will never be living anywhere I'm not.

He is always with me. I tend to forget that so easily, possibly because I have this nasty tendency to rely on myself.

But there is nowhere I can go to escape His love. While all my other friends must move on and we must spend our summers apart, I will remember that God is still with me. That Jesus is right beside me, being everything and more that my friends can't be.

Holy is He and Worthy of praise.