fleeting finality

i have such a hard time with endings and goodbyes. and this week is really such a very small blip on the radar of life changes, but it is still a closing of sorts. my first year of seminary, done. i took my last test this morning--my Hebrew final. and that's such a silly thing to mourn, right? i mean, i enjoyed learning Hebrew, but I sure won't miss the flash cards and the homework and the weekly quiz on Fridays. but i will miss my quirky TA who loves Job a little too much and the intimate feel of a five-person class and those intermittent passing realizations that this really is holy stuff we're mucking through, this beautifully biazare language.

of course, there are many other, more significant things i will miss now that this school year is ending. my roommate, arden, moved out this morning. it was weird to say goodbye and to wish her a good summer. it feels final somehow, even though i'll see her in the fall. it also doesn't feel like it's quite summer yet. having a whole week to myself though, to just hang out in atlanta and do a whole lot of nothing--that'll make it feel like a break. and i think it'll be just enough. i'll head to charlotte at the end of next week to see my sister graduate from college. then we'll spend a long weekend at the beach with my grandparents and it should be lovely. then summer school will start. like i said--just long enough to do nothing. after summer session, i'll head up to DC.

it's hard to be thrust head-first into this period of transition. people are leaving town and making summer plans, saying goodbye and wishing one another well. the fact that we've all been pushing so hard over the last few days to get through the end of finals week makes us realize all too suddenly that once the tests and papers are done, it's time to move on. it feels like standing up too quickly.

i'll miss this porch swing. i'm sitting on it now, writing, because it's cooler here in the shade than it is inside. this is my favorite place in the world right now. it's sunny and quiet, except for a few birds chirping, and there's a little girl swinging in circles on a tire swing down the street. and it's perfect. i have another month in this house, and there are certainly some things i will not miss about it. but this swing is my rose. last night, a few of us got together for margaritas and my sweet friend Say asked us all what our rose and our thorn were from the year. i decided all the times that i've spent out on this front porch, with lots of friends or with just one, or even by myself, like right now--those have been the best moments. studying or sleeping or laughing or just sitting. a lot of things have happened in my life this year--almost all really good things--but sometimes you just need to sit on a porch sweet on a warm southern day and sip on a glass of sweet tea (if you're lucky) and let life just slow down a bit.

but, like Qoheleth said (and as I correctly identified on my OT final last Friday!), to everything there is a season. summer always seems to be one of change. what i dislike the most, i think, is having to leave people and places and routines knowing that when we try to pick it all back up again in the fall--everything will be different. and that's good, really. my friends and i may come back together as different people and have to work to readjust to one another, but i hope that i change and grow from my experiences this summer--and trust that they will, too. but it's hard. it's a disruption. but i guess life wouldn't be much of anything if it wasn't for the disruptions.

so for now i'll say my goodbyes. i'll sleep in every day for a week and i'll watch gilmore girls reruns and start packing and planning. i'll rejoice that i've completed a whole year of this privilege that is graduate school. i'll rejoice to know that i'm in such a good, different place than i was two years ago, that i'm a different person with a new set of life experiences and a new community than the person i was just last year. and thank God for that. for no matter how good we think we've got it at any particular point in our lives, there's always the promise of more to come. gotta take the bad with the good, but there's always more to come.