Songs of Leaving...

Seems like I've spent a goodly portion of the last several years saying goodbye and leave-taking. I think it's one of the hazards of pursuing a graduate degree and devoting a portion of your life to pursuing a career--the path requires you to move some, lose some, say some goodbyes, and hang out with people who are doing the same. So not only are you parting from people and places that you have grown to love--or at least accept--but often, you are left behind. People say good-bye to you, too.

And when I say you, I really mean me. And maybe you, too, but firstly, me.

I remember reading somewhere (was it in one of Peter Gethers' books?) that any sort of parting brings us pain, because it ultimately reminds us of death, of our own mortality. I used to think that was a bit of a stretch, quite a leap, but not really, not anymore. Goodbyes of any type are hard, really hard. And if you're certain red head with a contemplative, dysthymic streak, goodbyes are good reasons to get good and quiet and sad and thoughtful for a good few weeks.

It was just a conference. Sure, on one level, it was just a conference, but on another level, one that relates back to my own life, it was also the first time I had returned to a region that I continue to love, stupidly and persistently, long after the region stopped loving me. More and more, I see that my love of the Midwest has been and will always be an unrequitted love. I have never been able to explain it to anyone, why I've loved the Midwest, Indiana in particular, so much. I don't know that I will ever be able to explain it. I know that it goes back to my childhood, some sense of rhythm and stability and normalcy that I knew I lacked, and that I somehow got into my head that a life in Middle America could have provided me. And I never really, truly realized it until I moved there and fell in love with Michael and thought we were going to live on a leafy, tree-lined, suburban street for the rest of our days, and finally I would have that normal family, that rhythmic life, that stability and security that I had always dreamed of.

The real lesson, the real gift that I came away with was that there is no stability or security. Not now, not ever. Not with a job, or without, not with a husband and children, or without. There's no true safety, no lasting security. Only comforting but fleeting moments in which we feel secure and experience a stable life, but never true and lasting stability. This realization still doesn't stop me from wanting a home and husband and family, but at least maybe it will keep me from going completely stupid the next time I experience the belief that there's a ultimate happy-ever-after.

When the plane lifted off the frozen Minnesota ground this morning, I cried. There is a song of leaving in my heart, one that I have been carrying around for two years, but haven't been able to sing.

But I think the music is starting...