The Reluctant Vagabonds We Harbour Within.

'Time outs' for me these days involve  sitting amongst packed boxes and piles of 'giveaways', 'for sales', 'recyclables', 'for the shredder' and 'for the curb' items.

I never realized that preparation for moving can be so emotionally taxing.
I'll now have much greater empathy for my clients as they prepare for their moves and sort through the years of their lives deciding what to keep and what should be let go of.

Our lives are like shooting stars. They go by so fast.
It's strange how the static objects in our lives, those things that don't change, serve as guideposts to where we've been and what's been lost along the way.

They say you can never go back and I'm beginning to understand that more and more as I prepare to leave the life I have here behind and begin anew elsewhere.

Daily I am approached by people who come up to me with sorrowful faces who say things like:

"I hear you're leaving us."

"Yes, at the end of the month."

"Well that's great for you but not so great for us. We're going to miss you."

and

"So you're moving away! I'm devastated to hear this. I've had my two hour cry and consulted my therapist over the fact that you're moving."

"I'm really feeling sad over the fact that you're moving away. In fact, I'm feeling sadder every day about this."

"You're what!?! You're moving away? WoW! I'm going to miss you terribly."

"I'm very disappointed to hear that you're moving. We're going to miss you."

and so on.

At these times, I begin to realize that the old 'cup in a bucket of water analogy' is really false afterall.
We all DO matter and we all do make a difference in the lives of others. And no, we are not replaceable.

We are each unique and fill a place in the lives of others that only we can fill.
Once the cup of our lives is taken out of their bucket, that bucket will never be the same again.

There's one problem though.
It slowly becomes very apparent to me that the bucket of my life is being severely depleted as I am losing the cups that represent so many people all at once, and this can become very overwhelming as it rips an ever deepening tear in the very heart of my being.

If you're not careful to say goodbye slowly and adjust to the loss of each person from your life, all of these goodbyes can become immobilizing.
Sure, you'll stay in touch. You'll visit, you'll email and you'll sometimes call; however no matter what, you know in your heart that things will never be the same.

Somewhere, in and around the Burlington, Ontario area, there are many people who will soon be adding a unique and beautiful cup 'of their life' to the new bucket of my life that I'll soon be filling.
Even this knowledge though, does not compensate for those I'm leaving behind.

As I experience this slow disentangling from my life here, an old post I wrote comes to mind and these words I wrote ring loud and clear deep within the raw and saddened places of my being:

"Your soul is a child. It is the first to wander off and trust. The first to fall in love with an idea, a view or a person. The last to forget. It is the part of you that tags behind and pulls with a steadiness as it cries to you ‘no, wait, wait, I am not ready to say goodbye . Can’t we just stay a bit longer?’

Your soul is innocent. It lives in a different world than you. A different dimension. It will never understand the harsh events of your life nor the negative character traits of the people you come across. This is not a part of your soul’s vocabulary.

Your soul is blind. Your soul is only love. It is the dancing child within you. The one who calls to you to look up and see that last mauve cloud move briskly across the clearing sky after a downpour.

It is the one who understands what an old dog is saying as his eyes gently and humbly meet yours and something within you softly moves.

Your soul will feed itself. It only asks that you prepare a small corner table in a quiet courtyard where flower petals fall softly to the stones below and your face can be caressed by the shifting whimsy of a gentle breeze.

Then it asks that you take a seat in the remaining old wrought iron chair and listen to what it has to say."

Lately I've been drinking a lot of that old, mellowed brew that my soul serves up each time I sit down to lend an ear to what it wants to tell me.

The stories it tells me these days are often sad ones for you see, it longs to linger behind with those people and days it's grown attached to, while the rest of me moves on.

Well, I guess I better finish this last drop of tea my soul served up this morning and get back to sorting through those tangible pieces of my life.
The intangibles my soul yearns to deal with will have to wait for another day.

Perhaps tomorrow.

©2008JoSmith