one of the most heartwrenching things in life, I think, is not knowing how to say goodbye. That moment when you get out of the car. The moment you must drive away. The moment the door closes and you find yourself standing in the doorway alone. Those rare and beautiful moments when you are given into the arms of another. Two more weeks, two more weeks-- they all push it away like it isn't the looming thing that really is coming closer and closer to me. One of the most painful things in life is having to say goodbye but not knowing quite how. Goodbyes must be the most trying to the relational soul. It is a crossroads of where we've been and where we are going-- what do you mean to me and where will we go? It is a matter of trust, an acceptance of the tension that hangs in the balance between hands as the grip is released. What will happen when we let go? A risk of intimacy that we wonder if it may be far too great. To admit, to say aloud that I care enough to say goodbye-- that it isn't enough for me for our relationship to fade in akward silence. It is the risk of vulnerability that must whisper this is so hard for me. The excruciating pain that saps the strength. The questions that bombard the soul, wrenching it of breath. how do you reach out. How do you savor the last moments. Endurance. Sit tight. Sit through it. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. the hurt of questions too deep to articulate. The need simply to be heard when there are no words to speak. what is there to say except the pain of separation, the questions that it brings rides neck and neck with the uncertainty of what lies ahead. What lies ahead when our fingers are severed, our enclosed hands separated. When those entwined fingers suddenly become what feels like a solitary, opened hand. And when maybe the only true thing to do is to listen to the pain. To allow the tension of the uncertainty to ring in the ears. To trust that somehow, some way, it cannot just be up to me.