I used to get really messed up and sad after anytime I'd spend a week with all my friends, like at camp or on a mission trip (where I inevitably would rebel against annoyingly insecure youth leaders) or whatever it was. I'm talking about when I was a kid here, people.
I was thinking about this (and many other things) on my 4.5 hour drive from San Jose back to the coast yesterday, after dropping Alex and Kevin and Rochelle off at the airport.
It's interesting that the whole "morning after" thing is just a childhood emotion. (In that context.) I can recall so vividly waking up the next morning after a great trip where I'd had so many new experiences and fallen in love (usually with an older girl) and upon waking I would find that my emotions were in disarray, my mind was going a million different directions, and I was horribly, awfully alone.
Have you ever had that? I realized it stopped like sometime in early high school, probably. But those mornings would be so awful, so traumatic, so gut-wrenching, that they have left a very clear memory.
Sometimes over the past few years I've thought about those mornings. Usually I am reminded when, at the close of another great journey or extended period of time with friends, I find that there's no horrible emptiness, no instant nostalgia, there's just moving on.
It's not to say that the events themselves are less impacting now than they were when I was a kid. I think in most ways they are far more impacting, now, because I am more fully able to appreciate every moment, every lesson, every experience, for what it is – possibly a "once in a lifetime".
I can still be moved by leaving though – it just is very rare. Although truth be told, the reason remains the same…it's always about a girl.
But I wasn't thinking about that while driving. I was just thinking that I'd gone from the Pacific to the Atlantic and a whole lot of mind-blowing rivers in between with a group of people who shared the experience and added to the enjoyment of the whole thing, and now it's over.
I was not sad or nostalgic though. Because the older I get, the more I know that life just keeps rolling forward, and there are so many things yet to experience, so many things to focus my attention on in the present moment…there's little time to be sad about wonderful times ending.
I think that is part of what the problem was growing up – when you're a kid, summer camps or weeklong trips can be THE highlight of your year. And when it's all over, it seems like nearly forever before you can even start looking forward to the next experience like that.
I guess these days, I've got the times of my life stacked one on top of the other.
So instead of nostalgia, I simply feel very, very blessed.
I'm proud of myself for making the choices that allow such blessing.