Please Recycle, Installment Quatre

I have been thinking a lot lately about leaving...about when it will hit me that I'm really going away, and what I will do when it does hit me. Cry a lot, no doubt. I mean, a lot. You know my sad little speech after Friday night's show? It will probably look like that, with less talking and a whole lot more tears. Except that next time, when the curtains close, I won't be able to run to my closest friends and join them in a dramatic, sorrowful, lovely embrace. You guys, I loved that moment.

Somewhere I heard someone say that we don't realize how much we love someone until we have to live without them. I think it was supposed to be about death, and no one has died, but the same concept rings true here. I don't get to see any of my Single Ladies, or my parents or brother and sister and dog, or other friends (guess what? I have a couple!) for...months!

The scariest part, to me, is not the fact that I am going away for a few months but what that actually means. I am leaving home. Even when I come back for holidays and summers, it will be different and temporary. Uh oh, here come some tears! I only have a week and a day left of being a child in my parents' home. I have to be responsible, take care of myself. When my parents walk away next Friday, I will become just a little more alone. To my siblings' friends, I will just be the big sister in college. It is just so weird to me that in so short a time, there will be two kids at my house and not three. My room will be empty. My mom will cry a lot, and my dad will too, and my sister will a little bit. I hope Tyler does too, even if no actual tears fall. And you Single Ladies better too! :)

But you know, a few months is nothing. After all, our entire lives are nothing more than a breath.

Great, I am now on the other side of that emotional hump and can see a little more clearly. It kind of reminds me of my favorite aspect of the Psalms...I feel but I know. I feel sad, helpless, and scared. But I know that God holds my life in His hands, and I know I will be okay.

I feel, but I know.