My heart is still filled with love. And it also breaks a little with each encounter, any mention, or a sighting of any of you. You are living, serving, preaching, playing... and you are dying. One by one (and some would argue, corporately), when you pass, I knew you. And that stings the hardest. I knew you, and now you are gone. I have never experienced the exquisite beauty nor the intense pain of death until I got to know you. Before you died, I knew who you were. And now it will forever be like this. I will know every one of your names, will recognize most every picture when I come across your obituary. Sometimes I go looking for them, but most times, they pop up unexpectedly. And that is the worst. I am unprepared, and it is startling. Unexpected. And yet, to be expected, right? For we all die eventually. It's just a fact of life. And many of you are quite old; you have lived good long faithful lives in community. We knew you well, and you were truly our sister. So we rejoice as you are released from your withering body to go "home" at long last.
But when I am separated from you and hear of your loss, I am always stunned. Each new departure takes me by surprise.
I did a lot of dying to myself during the time I was officially one of you. I remember how I kept wondering "How much more of me has to die? How much of myself do I have to lose before I'm completely lost?" It truly felt like a Very Bad Thing, this steady losing of myself, being unable to see what newness was to come. I began to realize that I would not be as healthy a person for going through the formation process as I was when I began it. And I was not exactly the picture of mental health when I entered.
And that is why, I think, I had to leave. Why I ultimately decided that vowed religious life was not for me. There are times I wonder if that was a mistake on my part, leaving it--leaving you--behind after 6 short months as a candidate, especially considering how long and hard I thought about it, prayed about it, dreamed about it, applied and waited for that 'yes.'
But then I remember how I came to know in my *soul* over those lonely December nights that I had to go. And I try to take comfort in that. I try to keep trusting my truth and moving forward, with as few regrets as possible.
But always there are the questions: "What was it all about?" "Why does it still hurt so much?" "(When) will I ever be really over it all?"
I want so much to have you in my life, and yet I am reduced to tears, time and again, by the very thought of making a move to do so. I want to worship with you, pray with you, share a conversation or a meal. But the thought of anything more than the occasional light email with a select few of you never fails to bring tears to my eyes and a deep hollow pain to my heart. I want it so badly, but I am unable to keep my composure enough to do so. The tears that overwhelm threaten to rock me to my core, and my heart hurts like the loss of no lover ever has. My heart feels bruised, wounded, lost and confused. I can't put my finger on the exact hurt--I wish I could--it's just there. Very, very there.
I fear I might drown in these tears if I let them flow. Indeed, I did give myself over to the intensity of the grief and sobbed--hard--for well over an hour one time. It was frightening. But there are still more I have locked away; refused to loose for that very reason. And yet, I'm beginning to realize that these unshed tears may just be overtaking me from the inside. I am drowning from within from the tears I have suppressed. The grief I've refused to allow myself to fully feel is bursting the dams and I am powerless to refuse them.
What am I afraid of? Why is the grief still so strong, over two years later? When will I be over this feeling of sadness? Or will you always feel like the love of my life that I let slip away--that I walked away from, regretful forever?
