Breath Before the Plunge

“I don’t want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can’t escape is even worse.”

Pippin’s words float through my mind often these days. In January, I plunged excitedly into leaving preparations, only to pulled back to the surface again by a miscarriage. While that grief is still in-process (and I don’t want to minimize it here, just acknowledge that it happened), the intensity faded after a couple weeks and was replaced by overwhelm at all I had left to do and decide. When I complained to a friend about it, she had the gall to offer a suggestion: write it all down and prioritize. I was really fishing for sympathy, but I took her suggestion anyway. Now all the to-dos and decisions of the next few weeks reside in a shared Google doc on my phone & computer, instead of solely in my brain. Once there, they can be discussed/accomplished/solved and deleted–and so they have been. My brain relishes its freedom.

A curious thing has happened in my heart, though. You’d think that the closer the time comes to return to the United States, the more excited I’d be. But the reverse is true: the closer the time comes to leave Spain and the more I cross off my list, the more scared I become.

That friendly old lady librarian who delights in my children’s Peppa Pig obsession? Three weeks left. The glorious blue-sky days on El Costa Del Sol, with its stark mountains on one side and its endless blue sea on the other? Three weeks left. My friendships, built slowly brick-by-brick, complete with hard conversations and high emotions and apologies? Three weeks left. My air-tight family routines and rhythms? Three weeks left. 

I am glad to move back, truly I am. It’s just that right now, that gladness is mostly submerged under all the upheaval and uncertainties the next year or so will hold.  Finding the joys of life in Spain proved a difficult treasure hunt for me; the measures of peace and ease I felt usually came after diligent search. So now, on the brink of exchanging those joys for different ones, I wish I could close my eyes and somehow fast-forward through the next year or two until life is familiar, safer, easier once again. 

But as Johnnyswim sing, “Escape is a waste, ain’t no use in hiding, you know the best way over’s through.” 

Here’s to the battle, then. Here’s to marking each joy and sorrow of ending one stage and beginning the next. Here’s to the tears and laughter along the way. 

Here’s to my Emmanuel, with me now and in the future already, lighting my path. 

Here’s to Him as my safety through it all.