moving on

I'm sitting in an office with a nice computer finally. The director just walked out of his office and said if anyone calls for a reference for me that all should speak absolutely horribly about me so that I can't leave. A joke of course but a wonderful compliment from a man who rarely gives them. But it's interesting because I don't feel like I have much of anything left to do. My time is coming to a close here. I never thought that I would feel at peace about leaving. I never thought that there would come a time when I would run out of things that I see that need to be done. But I have. And as I'm sorting through pictures on the catalog, one of the last things that I would've said last year needs to be done, memories of the past summers flood my heart and mind. And I never thought that I would say I'm ready to be done with camp, but I think I am. I think I'm finally getting there. I can feel my heart disengaging, pulling away, separating myself from my love for this place and all the good it has done in both my life and others. I still love the summers here, but I don't think I want to be here for the next one.

But it's not a bitterness that pushes me out though there is the temptation.

And its not the futility of the situation either, though again there is the temptation.

It is simply time to move on.

It is time to embrace something new. Of course, this is something that I have felt for a long time. My sense of adventure and restlessness hardly ever let me feel content in a place for long. But it's as if I've finally been given permission to move on, that the job I was meant to be here for has been completed. The relationships that I needed to develop have been developed. The healing my own heart needed to experience has occurred. And I am allowed to start afresh, anew.

There are definitely a few things that I am glad to leave behind--buried emotions that will only be fully aired once some distance is granted; doubts about myself and my abilities that need to be refuted in a new experience. And there are definitely a few things I am very sad to leave--relationships that have quickly grown unexpectedly; a beauty that is unique; a community, though struggling, that is very much a community. But there is one thing I have learned in all of this and it serves as a comfort as I move forward. My passion is people, first and foremost, and no matter where I go, I continue to prioritize investing in those around me as well as the relationships I have left behind. I have managed quite well to believe Satan's lie that because I am not an extrovert, people cannot be my passion, that I lack the skills. And maybe I do lack some of the skills, but I don't lack the heart and that's what counts. No matter how many times I have to start over before I figure out where I am supposed to be, I will never give up on people. I will never reach a point where I do not want to invest and be invested in.