Saying goodbye
I wrote this essay in november 2022 for a dutch blog about living with chronical illness. It would be my last one for them.
Summer does not seem to want to say goodbye this year, it remains a warm and dry October here in Spain, with temperatures above 30 degrees.
Yet the autumn wind this year is one of change. A wind that makes me feel like rain is coming. It comes in gusts, which I can hear coming rolling through the poplars from afar. It makes the overripe persimmons plop to the ground like little waterballons, the fig tree slowly turns yellow, the cherry trees are already almost bare.
Autumn, the perfect time for a change, a farewell. And so I sit in my new, slightly oversized office chair, ready to write my last blog for Lizette's platform.
Saying goodbye has never been my strong point. Yes, I love tidying up, getting rid of stuff that is unnecessary, going through and clearing out my wardrobe, but certain situations, people and the choices that come with them are hard for me to give closure.
I remember when I went back to work at the primary school after four months of illness and so much had changed that from day one I actually felt I no longer fitted in. During the upcoming autumn break, I wanted to take time to think about what I was going to do. The Friday before, the headmaster almost literally gave me my resignation letter: after the holidays, I didn't have to come back.
And when my marriage had actually not turned out as I expected, I walked through the autumnal landscape of a nearest park west of Chicago, wondering what step to take. The following morning, my husband's actions unexpectedly promptly decided to pull the plug on our relationship.
Both times I felt distraught, as I had tried to do everything as ‘nicely as possible’, but the choices were made faster by others than I was making them myself. On a rusty tray, I was presented with what I secretly wanted: leaving!
What I learned, from this and other similar situations, is that if I don't take the step myself, an emotional and sometimes destructive autumn storm will do the work for me. But because in that way, the ground is pulled out from under my feet and I find myself shaking on my waxy legs afterward, it was important for me to learn to get ahead of that moment from now on.
I had to learn to listen to that little voice inside and do what it says. Now, in this moment and not later. Later when maybe I do have time, do have peace to sit down, do have space left to give to myself. No, now, because I know that if I don't act on it, life will automatically turn everything upside down to such an extent that it will take me months if not years to put things right again.
That that road did not go over roses, that seems obvious. Change, and thus saying goodbye to what you know, is so damn hard. That which you know is so safe. You know what you have, you know how the balls roll, you know how the clock is ticking. That's all well and good, except when something gnaws somewhere. Yet I hid that gnawing feeling, it was a threat to my security, to the way of life I had built. Of course it was false comfort, so why did I choose it anyway?
Over the years, with every new test life gave me, I discovered yet another reason:
The idea that life should ever be stable and balanced
The peace of mind that not acting gives me
The belief that I should ‘arrive’ somewhere, an end point
And that that is only a truly successful life
But is that really true?
In English, there is the word ‘sojourney’. A sojourner is a person who stays in one place only temporarily and so sojourney is a journey with several temporary stops in between.
To learn to listen to that little voice, to react when something is gnawing, I needed to start to see life as a sojourney. As a journey of my soul without really having to arrive somewhere. That what Confucius depicts so beautifully in his aphorism:
‘The road itself is your destination’.
Then again, when another stormy autumn wind passes through my life once in a while, I also know that after that virtual resignation letter, I had a year to figure out what I did want and I ended up at a workplace so perfect that I could never have thought of it myself in just ‘a week long autumn break’.
And I also know that after I left the US, I was allowed to wander around Spain for years. It was precisely by listening to that little voice in time this time that I did end up in a warm place to live and work as I would like: flexible and closer to the natural way.
Change still evokes fear, but it also gives me a sense of calm: I no longer have to fight with that inner little voice, go against that gnawing feeling. I flatter myself more and more easily into surrender in order to give space to the future.
So I long for change, I long for colder days: snow on the Sierra and that nice warm woollen jumper over my shoulders, while sitting in my slightly oversized office chair still writing but on my own terms.
With Love,
Daphne