Leaving

I came on this ship to do ministry, and to develop my relationship with God, and because I was convinced it was what God wanted me to do. I did not come here to "start a new life" or to make new friends. When I left home, in fact, I distinctly remember saying to some well-wishers who tried to cheer me up with promises of new friends, "I don't WANT new friends!! I just want to keep the friends I have!" But I have invested myself into life on board, and into the people I have seen every day for two straight years. And it's hard to leave.

I have thought so many times recently that I should really be writing more - in my journal, on this blog, to my friends, and oh yeah, my final newsletter. Honestly it is just hard to find words. But while going through some of my old things tonight, I came across something I wrote one and half years ago. Much has happened since then, but I recognize the same experience now that I was having then.

God is making it more difficult for me to hold on than to let go. Is it possible to genuinely and deeply love a person and be okay with being separated from them?

The rest of the words filling that page . . . will probably never see the light of day. They seem emo and humorous to me now, which I suppose illustrates some level of personal progress I have made.

But progress or no, this still sucks. The only thing that is guaranteed to make me feel better is dreaming about trips to Romania, and the Netherlands, and Paraguay, and Great Britain, and France, and the Middle East of course, and oh yeah I would love to go to Morocco someday, and maybe Korea or Japan . . . and . . .