And I Thought What I Felt Was Simple...

I am sitting in a chair in a little internet cafe on a busy street in Colombo, Sri Lanka...where are you today?

The funny thing is that I didn't even want to write my blog today. I'm tired, my head hurts, I have a huge mosquito bite on each hand and I'm hot. But, my email isn't working for some silly reason and so I think it's meant to be.

I guess I didn't think I had much to say but we have left Kallar for good and there is something to be said about that. Time is funny how it passes without letting you know really. One day you're just adjusting to life and the next you're trying to understand how it's all changing again. I wrote this in my little Sri Lankan notebook that I got from the kids as I drove away from Kallar in my little black van on Wednesday:

Saying goodbye is such a strange concept. There's such a sadness that floods your soul. I mean it's not there and then all of the sudden I'm sitting in a van driving in the opposite direction of what I've called home and I realize that I can't breathe the same. Life will never be that way again and it hurts. But I'd choose it any day over never living there at all.

I'd bet people who don't live life this way think that it probably hurts too bad to say good-bye that it's not even worth it in the 1st place. But what do they know? I wonder if losing a piece of your heart when you leave people you've come to love helps you grow a stronger, bigger heart that you can share with more people.

I wish I had words to articulate life better sometimes and how thankful I am for it. I mean, sometimes I can't breathe and I as much as I want to see I can't bring myself to open my eyes because the beauty I feel inside is too much to ruin with the mediocrity of the world. I am so thankful for so much. It's like I’m not even allowed to express it in words because they're not good enough. There's not really anything good enough though. So instead of even trying, I sit in silence with the hope that maybe just this time, the moment will last long enough to let go of some of the tears that want so badly to escape.

It's funny that I have to get all this out today, in this moment, in this rickety black van, before my next moments taint these. And they will - they always do. But it's not a bad thing. It's life. And life can be great if you don't forget what you've lived and the things that changed you. It's too easy to for the present, or even the future, to flood the past and make it like never existed.

This short time is like a dream and as I'm driving away it's like those short moments in between sleep and awake when you feel like you'll remember your dream forever but then all of the sudden life becomes reality and the dream isn't as real as it once seemed.