don't say goodbye

it was a curious, beautiful moment. a poet exiting my car, hanging on to the door, looking back at me saying,

i wish you the best. i wish the best for both of us, but i don't want you to go.

i know.

i said.

it is always tough leaving. i don't let everyone in, but those who get in, are treading the tender soil of my heart. sowing and tilling with their footsteps. sometimes i forget it takes a season of death to bring about life. sometimes i forget.

my entire life feels like it's been about leaving. i've said it before. but now, i just want to stay. to be allowed to live and thrive. my child safely tucked under my wing. but we must all fly away, we must all stand and rise and walk forward to fulfill our destiny, mustn't we?

we must.

the familiar must yield to unfamiliarity. the comfortable to the unknown. the feeling of knowing a place to the mystery of discovery once again. though i grow tired of it all. it calls to me. it stirs in my blood. new places, new faces, new friends.

how i love my old friends. the ones worn in like comfortable shoes. the ones who have been with me going on twenty years now. some whom i have just met, but feel like we've been friends forever.

there simply is not enough love to go around. or perhaps in these moments, when we hang on the door of a friend leaving for the unknown, these moments when we don't want to say goodbye. perhaps there is enough love. and we stand and drink our fill. swaggering away, wishing it didn't take a goodbye to remind us.