Seasons, chapters, paths, the children

For everything there is a season. Today I ended one of the most important chapters of my life when I said goodbye to my students for the last time. I am not going to write details about what happened today. It is too close to my heart, and writing the details will only turn the raw emotions into inadequate words that could never truly convey how I felt, or feel now. I will simply say that it was one of the hardest days of my life and it left me absolutely drained.

I want to write more about the end of this experience, but the truth is, I don't know what to write right now. I'm too deeply in it to be able to properly reflect. I am too emotional, too exhausted. I don't know how I've changed or what my future holds for me. I don't remember the person I was before I came to Honduras, and I don't know how to explain this experience to anyone who wasn't here, doing it with me. It feels impossible to explain because it was a world of paradox that, on the surface, probably makes no sense. It felt both impossibly difficult and overwhelmingly rewarding. It was beautiful and ugly. It was a learning experience and a teaching experience. It was joyful and painful. It was confusing and painfully simple.

Six years ago, on the morning I was supposed to leave to go to college for the first time, my alarm went off and I hid under the covers of my bed because I dreaded leaving home so much. My dad came into my room and sat on my bed and told me it would be okay. He talked to me about the many lives we lead within the scope of our lifetimes. Doors open and close, experiences begin and end, and we forge our paths to take us somewhere meaningful. Nothing is forever, and goodbyes and salutations are integral parts of life. Change is hard, but extremely necessary.

It has been a beautiful year. In the end, for me, it was all about the children. As trite and cliche as this will sound, they did far more for me than I did for them. I don't know exactly where I'm headed next, but I do know that I will forever carry those children with me in my heart.

I have three more nights here on my mountain, and then I'm headed home on Monday to start the next chapter of my life. A year in Honduras... I did it.