goodbyes. (journal entry)

goodbyes (journal entry)

I was taken back to an old memory yesterday. Not sure what prompted it, other than a few unchecked thoughts and piqued curiosity, "I wonder how they are doing?" Hmm... one feeble Instagram search later, and I caught myself thinking, "Why?" as I awakened to a new day and prepared my breakfast.

Scooping my oats from the bottom of the container, I reluctantly hear an intimate whisper, "I'm trying to heal you from that." I quickly remarked, "I thought I was healed from that."

I think life is not a fast-passing slew of events that quickly absorb into another. Healing doesn't happen in a moment, it happens in our daily decisions. To lay down what once was and lay hold of the now - the new us that is beckoning us forward. The new us that must be summoned if we ever want to rise above our common inclination toward easy. I don't want it to be easy. I want to lay it all down. Give in to everything my mind is telling me to go against. I'd rather it be hard and worth it than make it easy and stay mediocre. 

Bye bye. How often do we keep saying hello to people and places that aren't meant for us any longer? How often do we cling to the hellos that leave us with a hollow heart longing for more? How long until we realize that we can sing "bye" at just the right time? What if we stepped into our goodbyes with just as much expectation as our "hi's!"? Too often, my heart clings to the past—to what I've seen and the memories I've made. With no expectation that there could be more on the other side of that closed door. I don't want it to, my mind just goes there—to my lack. To questioning, "What if I never have it like that again?" Why can't I let go of what happens and has happened to me? Why is it harder for me to dance away the pain of bye than the dance I take when a new person or place enters my life? 

I think each moment matters, some having a greater impact than others. Instagram, TikTok, this social media world can tend to make us think that where life is, is in our mindless scroll. Life is found in the memories we make face to face. It's found in our mistakes and successes—in our memories and in the mess. I have to say "bye" to versions of my life constantly. That person. The version of myself that was broken. Those people who I gave my heart to and took it back as quickly as I gave it. And I can look at the "bye's" fondly, though they hurt for a while. I can choose to see the dance of life in it—there will be many "goodbye's" and many hellos. Some that lead to more pain than I expected. Some that awaken my sense of the pain that still lives in me. 

Goodbye's have life too, and I'm here to embrace them, rather than let the melancholiness take its toll on me like it used to. It's hard though, right? When you've invested so much of your heart, your time, your effort… it can all feel like a waste to just let it go. Nothing is ever a waste, even the things that leave us with instant distaste as we recall what's left us without the familiar scent of what we've gained and lost all at once. Gained so much, yet lost more than I could've ever thought.

Life is not meant to stay the same and neither are we. Hindsight is always 20-20. We look back with fondness, rarely remembering all the toxic. All the ways in which we were connected to what was killing us or what was no longer serving the best version of us. We wonder why we can't go back to what once was… you can't go back to what was because you're not the same you. That isn't your life anymore and it is okay to let it go. And to let it hurt even as your fingers grasp onto the past like sand slipping through your fingertips. I'm learning to be okay with patterns that linger too long, and understand that patterns are just decisions away from being reformed and reworked into a better you - one more refined by the byes than shaped by what once was.

Hope can fill my bones once again. Healing can take place. My heart can be mended where the pain of bye is too great to bear. So, I ask God again and again to make this rhythm of "bye" one that I dance only because God's calling the shots. He's given me new beats time and time again. Showing me that by his blood I've been bought and just as he had to die, rise again, and show up to his disciples with scars in his tattered hands… he's empowering me to show up. Scars and all. Residue from what I've been through. And still have joy in my heart and peace to give even when the pain of bye is still residing in me… coming up from time to time. And showing me that today another decision awakens me to lay down what is no longer mine.

This reflection was prompted by the popular song "Bye" by Ariana Grande. She seems to be singing about her breakup with her ex, as she, with her disco-y pop flare, belts, "Boy, bye…bye, bye, I'm takin' what's mine… it's over, it's over, oh yeah…" She makes bye…freeing. It's as if you can hear the freedom she is singing, belting it from her lungs. Notes go up and up… notes of freedom. Of being done…of pulling up and out of what once was. I could totally apply my life to this concept—loving and losing someone while I playfully dance "bye" to what once was and now will no longer be. However, I want to apply it in another way… bye can mean freedom. Bye is weighty, heavy, uncomfortable, and unrelenting. It can feel awkward and sad as you reminisce on all that you had. Yet, it releases you from what no longer belongs in the tapestry of your life. Let the thread go and appreciate the beauty it provided when it was meant to. May we say "hello" with joy and "bye" with a rhythmic, glee-filled dance. And ask God to help us know when the time is right to go and when we're meant to stay. When we do that, we'll take what is ours. True life is found in obedience to Jesus, the hellos and goodbyes alike—may we welcome them with a warm yet unfamiliar embrace—although melancholy and confusing at times, let our dance be one of "good bye's."

"The Lord will work out his plans for my life – for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever." Psalm 138:8

"A person's steps are directed by the Lord. Who can understand their own way?” Proverbs 20:24