Community and change...

Growing up, my mother was always an advocate of leaving a place well, she said that it is important for our emotional health. Looking back over the years of people and places that I have loved, there is always an inevitable pain associated with goodbyes and separation, you leave pieces of your hearts everywhere you go if you truly let yourself love and be loved. But I have always tried to listen to her advice and proactively consider how to leave a place well.

How much harder, then, thinking about a place where leaving is normative for half of the population, and those who remain have to continually say goodbye. What can you do to honor their hearts? If it were just a matter of readying them .... I could make a royal stink out of myself and then it would be a "good riddance!" They'd be ready for me to leave alright! But it is so much more complex than that...

I suppose it lies in savoring 'this minute' and listening to what they themselves are saying... and, not 'transitioning out' too soon.