Lead, Kindly Light

The experiences become more meaningful as we repeat events that have happened before–but with the added benefit of time and shared life in the intervening year. This evening at the ball, the players were the same, but we were all a year older, and therefore had experienced an additional year of life together. That meant an entire year of Bible study and small group with one friend… and an entire year of letter-writing, unexpectedly deep conversations, study sessions, and dancing (this was our…third? dance since last year) with another. Those factors made this time around much deeper and far more significant.

Each gathering like this also becomes more poignant than the last because of the finality of what’s to come. Parting ways – to Iceland. To Canada. To the City. Three people, going three separate ways. What to do? Today I was I finally moved to just say it: “I don’t want you to go.” And I guarantee you, that wasn’t the social lubricant talking.

We’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love – we’ll give it a shot

Whooah, we’re half way there
Livin’ on a prayer
Take my hand and we’ll make it – I swear
Livin’ on a prayer

And the answer I got was true – we still have a long way to go. Lots of fun times still up ahead. We don’t have to worry about goodbye yet. That’s good – because I’m not ready, and I don’t know when I will be. Or if I will be. Maybe we will dance and play and love all the way to the end — and then just… Unclasp hands. Take our respective forks in the road. Let go. Without fanfare, without elaborate goodbyes, without all the standard behaviors that attend that thing that we all think we need: closure.

Because closure would mean “closed.” Done. Finished. And maybe that lack of fanfare and lack of officialness would signal that we refuse to ever be closed, done, or finished. Because over the last three years, that with which we have been blessed and given – that bond that we have shared and strengthened – cannot just be broken off like a twig on a tree.

I don’t know.

* * *

Tonight I let loose in a way that I haven’t in a long time — or probably/maybe ever. It was strange, but freeing, and probably healthy in the long run. The thing about it was that I felt completely safe the entire time. Not safe as in physically safe, though obviously that was never an issue. But — emotionally safe. Experiencing that level of love and security is very freeing to one’s spirit. Trust already runs deep; it runs deeper after today.

Oh I need you, by me,
Beside me, to guide me,

So let’s dance, this last dance
Let’s dance, this last dance
Let’s dance, this last dance tonight…

Thanks for the dance, for the last dance, for every dance.