Leaving You.
9:35 PMLast weekend, I graduated college. I've worked so many college graduations, that it seemed surreal to be the one sitting in the seat. In a blink, I had walked across the stage, turned my tassel, and said goodbye to the place that had become my home these past four years.
They told me that when I went to College, that I was "on my own". But they were wrong. I was never on my own. Instead, I was constantly surrounded by an incredible group of people. It's easy to say goodbye to a place, but it's nearly impossible to say goodbye to a home. These days have been full of goodbyes, but the hardest is saying goodbye to my roommates who I've lived with for the past 3 years, so this one is for you guys.
You come to a point when you live with people long enough, where you all become a little bit of each other. We all picked up some of Elisabeth's southern Georgia accent, Taylor's hair tricks, and our senses of humor began to merge together, producing an endless harmony of laughter.
The blessing it is of intimately knowing someone, beyond the basics and into the specifics. And beyond the specifics, into the tiny quirks that make up those humans. Like that Kelsey loves the burnt edges of brownies and Naomi will never eat the last bite of her food no matter what. It's those things I'll miss.
Times weren't always easy and we certainly were not immune to passive aggressive group messages, dirty dishes, and borrowed clothes malfunctions. But at the end of the day, I walked into a house of girls, who knew me, and listened to my silence, and got on their knees to pray for me when I couldn't pray for myself.
I have spent this last week on the Carolina Coast with those roommates. On the beach, I was reading with one eye and people watching with the other. I watched children on boogie boards ride the end of the waves, and fathers throw footballs to their sons, mothers wiping off their children's sandy little feet. And I discovered that I can no more go back to my college days than I can go back to sandy little feet and boogie boards. Time is funny, how it can both heal you and break your heart.
In the next few days, I'll be traveling from the coast of South Carolina to the Puget Sound of Washington. I'll be headed home to a place I haven't called home in quite some time and I'll be liviing on an island, trading in zaxby's fried chicken for fish tacos. And while I would say that I'm now finally "on my own", I know it can't be true. Because if my time at Lee University has taught me anything, it is that The Lord will bring you the people you need at the right time to get you through that chapter of your life. So to my roommates, thanks for helping me navigate through life, at this chapter you couldn't have been more perfect. We will find greater adventure, and different people to love, and I have to believe that there is so much more ahead of us. But whenever I think back to college, I will always think of late night pillow talk on Georgetown and the way it has changed me. Godspeed & cheers to making it, and not having to do it alone.
"Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart,
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)"
-E.E. Cummings
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