A Series of Hellos

The last few years have been emotional ones. Filled with Joy and Sadness. Love and Loss. Hope and Fear....
But I guess that's how life always is..

I know I am not special to have the events in my life happen to me... similar ones have happened to many others.

Fall in love, get married...

Meet awesome people, befriend awesome people. Lose awesome people.

Right now I am hurting from the Latter.

In the past two years I have lost a number of friends I was close with for some time.. misunderstandings.. as small as the motive behind a screen play's character can tear a beautiful relationship apart... at least in my case.

Tonight I thought of a friend I had. A friend who was near and dear to me for sometime, whom comforted me when I cried, who prayed with me when my grandmother died, who helped in bringing me to Jesus and helped Nurturing me in His love... A friend I couldn't imagine my life without.... but like all good things.. this too had to come to an end.

I wrote this friend a message on Facebook . a playful one be it.. I wasn't serious, I just thought Facebook accidentally deleted them from my Facebook (this happens a lot with people for some reason) and to draw their attention to this fact I wrote " hey did I miss the memo? are we not friends anymore?" thinking they would notice they got deleted and accept my pending "re-request"..... the response that I got sent a sword into my heart. "Honestly Erin, we haven't been friends for years" it read.

I swallowed my stomach, a gut wrenching churn started within, and then the pain in the back of my throat that hindered the coming of tears.... until at last... I broke down....

I remembered a blog I wrote about 5 or 6 years ago that was about how life was a series of goodbyes... I wrote how people come and go and life is never constant and ever changing and we are wired to accept that all things must come to an end....

and yet...
time after time I believe that if I get to a place in my life where I am just happy enough... It will stay that way forever.

At a time I thought I would grow old with everyone I went to elementary school with, we would all go to the same Junior High and High school  be each other's roommates in college, marry each other... we would always be together.... strange I know... but this ideal I had a young child still seems to resonate within me...

because each time something ends, I feel the world turn inside out a little.

I began to hear Johnny Cash in my head (his cover at least) "everyone I know goes away in the end..."

I thought to myself that life is just a "series of goodbyes." as I felt so long ago...

but then I thought of each new chapter... and each old chapter and I began to think they didn't only have the common denominator that they ended... they also shared one other thing.... THEY BEGAN...

After wiping the tears from my eyes and mourning for my losses and thinking that everyone who ever loved me would eventually leave me I began thinking of my more current circumstances


-I have found a very welcoming group of people in the church I am attending and I am hoping one day to have the closeness with them that they have with one another...

-I am in a musical, with an amazing cast

-I said "hi" to a girl in my Pilates class one day and she and her family have become close friends of mine...

-I am attending a gym where I have awesome trainers and have made so many friends in the locker room..

And all of these pleasant occurrences all started with an introduction, and a "hello"...

So maybe life isn't a series of goodbyes... perhaps it is in fact a series of hellos...

after all... "when one door closes another one opens"

I pray the next seasons of my life are filled with joy, love, healing and growth.

Be Blessed.
-Erin.