Growing Close

Growing close to people is hard. It takes a certain level of intentionality along with grace and acceptance. It takes looking past the ugly, looking past the hurt, looking past the burden and choosing to always see the good in people. Growing close to people is hard because it takes effort—effort to put work into relationships with the risk that the effort may not be reciprocated. It’s hard because in the process of growing close, there becomes some sort of dependence on each other—a dependence of time, support, love, friendship, and community. It’s hard because somewhere along the way, this dependence is barely noticed. It is just accepted and kept as the norm. And while this dependence is not necessarily unhealthy, it is hard because you do not even know that it is there. And then comes the hardest part about growing close—having to say goodbye to someone on whom you didn’t even know you depended. 

Life is funny that way. You can go months on end without even noticing something or someone because it or he or she has gradually made its or his or her way into your life. And you don’t think about the end because, let’s face it, the end is sad and who wants to dwell on the sad. So you push it off. You push off the sad until it actually happens. And then one day, it’s there--just sitting there waiting for you to come and greet it with a tearful smile and an aching heart. 

And here's the thing about life: you think you have a lot more time than you actually do. Because in the beginning--in the happy--time had no limit, time was unnoticed. The possibilities were endless. The dreams were vague and the plans were far off. The people were present but not too close. But in the end, when you have grown close, time becomes all too real. Time shows up and that’s when you realize that it’s time to bid time farewell. You didn’t notice as time gradually made its way into your life; and now time is waving goodbye like the friend that you didn’t even know you depended on. 

And as you sit here and look back on all the time spent together while growing close, you start to realize the little things you took for granted--not because they were great things, but because they made you grow closer: the weird smells in the kitchen when your housemates cooked, the smiling or sad or angry or confused faces that you came home to every day, the food you left in the fridge for weeks, the puddles left on the bathroom floor, the toilet paper that was put on the wrong way… or not at all, the little sayings and inside (and inappropriate) jokes, all the embarrassing life stories of diarrhea and poop and other bodily fluids, the sound of a guitar playing from a distant room, the late night conversations, the sass, the drama, the sensitivity, and the compromise. And you look back on all of these things and you realize that these simple everyday happenings are now engrained into your mind-- not as mundane habit or routine, but as precious memories. And now looking back, you promise yourself that you will never take these memories for granted because they are what made you grow close. These memories are the opportunities that you had to show grace and love. These memories are what showed, and even built, your character. These memories are what now make it so hard to say goodbye. 

But saying goodbye is a little bit easier when you know that other people in this world are going to experience the same love that you felt as you grew close. Because when love is in someone’s core, it is going to ooze out and touch every person they come in contact with. And even though it hurts, letting someone go so that they can touch the lives of others is worth the risk that we take in growing close.