Bon Voyage

Departure day. People are continually asking me this past few months if I'm excited and while I usually answer yes, there's a very large unspoken BUT.

I have spent the last 43 years in this place learning how to be me. Now I've packed whatever I can travel with and will fly thousands of miles across the world to start over. If that's not cause for a measure of apprehension, I don't know what is.

I have clamped down on my emotions more and more lately just to be able to communicate without bursting into tears over the enormity of it all. And I ask myself how my parents did this 43 years ago when they left England for a new life in Canada. Probably because they were young and had each other and two small children in tow. They were going towards a new life and opportunities. Am I doing that? I have a couple of decades more than they did at the time. And my family is virtually grown now. Not quite the same, and yet it probably is.

I think the hardest part is the inadequacy of words to express what I'm feeling about the people that have walked through my life and painted it a brighter place. So many people have done so much for me in the past years and I can't even tell them properly or I'll start crying and never stop. And a head full of snot + air travel is simply not negotiable right now. The truth is that I have run out of time for my goodbyes and will have to figure out how to tell all these amazing individuals how much I love and appreciate what they have done to my existence. You know who you are. You are each beautiful and unique, and I will miss you more than I want to allow myself to feel.

My brave face is slipping a little. There have been so many tears in the past two months as I try to pack up our lives in this country until I know what happens 3 years from now. I honestly don't really know. All I know is that I'm doing this with the idea that I need to. I'm taking that leap into the open space and hoping that there will be new friends and family to catch me. I know the tears aren't done. There will be hard days and good days. I will sometimes wish I could go back to the way things used to be. But you can't go back.

I have learned so many new things just preparing to make this journey. I have learned that I need to let myself love more. I need to trust more. I need to smile and remember just how far I have traveled already. I need to remember that things are just things and my real treasures are the people I have walked with for a time. I look forward to walking with every single one of them again.

Time to stop. Time to push my shoulders back, take a deep breath and step forward onto the next path. I refuse to glance over my shoulder as I do so. That would be unfair to all of us. It would discredit the phenomenal support and encouragement I have been given so freely.

Here I go...

Comments

  1. Well said Debbie. A part of your heart will always remain in Raymond and Canada. No matter where you go, if you meet a fellow Albertan it will be old home week as you discover who you both know. Will you be back for 1st of July 2014? The Sheen's will be there and it will be a party. My Mom has decided that for her 50th wedding anniversary we all need to come home. Home is in Raymond and always will be. But home is also where you hang your hat. Can't wait to hear of your adventures in Australia. Love you my friend. The years have been kind to us both and I am glad that you have been there when I have come home.
    Wendy Sheen Rudy

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