Hello, Goodbye

 Back when I was a kid, my family used to have this cassette tape (yes, I am revealing a bit of how old I am by that reference!) of workout exercises. Especially my mom and I would put it on sometimes to get ourselves moving a bit during the day and, because we were a musical family, it worked out well because all the stretches and exercises were in song form. One in particular that I recall was a foot stretch where you had to bend your toes forward and back to this little tune of "hello, goodbye." At the time, I thought it was cute and fun, and we listened to it often enough that this jingle is still stuck in my head to this day. 

But as I grew older, the concept became less about a song and more about real life. And suddenly, it all stopped being quite so cute and fun. I began to live my way through the cycle of "hello, goodbye" in many forms, some of them being quite painful. I started to dislike the beginnings because it only meant an ending was around the corner and I resented the endings because it felt like God was taking more than He gave. It became this rotation for me of continuous grief and sadness as it never felt like I could accept either one or enjoy the life I was living. 

Something a few weeks ago triggered a still-painful memory of one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to say, and I realized that endings, however necessary sometimes, never get any easier. We may become numb to them emotionally, but we are never not impacted by them in some way. They upend our realities and ask us to reorder everything we've felt was known and cherished. Hopes get dashed, uncertainties loom large, and we mourn the loss of not only what is but also what could've been. I've gotten to the point personally where I've given myself permission to just say it for what it is: goodbyes really are the worst. 

And yet, hellos are there also. Always. And this I'm learning through some pretty complex twists and turns. As one chapter closes, there is always another one that seems to open up with new opportunities and unexpected blessings. Hellos bring with them hidden gifts of hope, especially when they arrive on the heels of great loss or suffering. They remind us of fresh starts and that the pain isn't final or for forever. However, like in my case, it may take awhile to understand that, however much we love to have hellos last eternally, even those will have their endings also. And this can make it hard to even want to open up to them at all. 

I've lately been delving into the concept of seasons and how the cycle of dying and rising is so aptly displayed. Throughout the creation, we see evidence that, in order for new life to emerge, something has to be buried. Something has to die. Something must be sacrificed in order to birth a new beginning. And this can be difficult to accept because the hellos - the resurrections - are always so much more exciting than the goodbyes. It's always more enjoyable to welcome something with great expectation and possibility than to admit that it has expired and it's time to move on. 

But somehow, I'm seeing, life is all about how we hold these two things simultaneously. Can we learn to move with nature's cycle and embrace that there will always be dyings living alongside the risings? Can we begin to embrace graciously the fact that the more we cling to or fight either, the less able we are to keep an open heart? Without this ability to hold our hands open - to hold our soul open too - we will be unable to appreciate each side of reality. We will wastefully spend our lives wishing for the life we no longer have instead of welcoming the one that is. 

God doesn't deal in what ifs and could-have-beens. God deals in the now. Right here. Present.  

And once I understand that and really take it to heart, I begin to see that God offers me one in order to get me to appreciate the other. Without the hellos, I cannot learn to let go and say goodbye. And without the endings, I cannot value the promise of new beginnings either. The two sides must exist in my story hand-in-hand. If I try to eliminate one, I will devalue the other because they are both equally important. Mysteries to be explored and truths to be learned. And as much as I hate change and my journey has yielded its share of trust issues and unknowns, I still have to not let the potential of goodbye ruin my joy of saying hello. The fact that I could lose shouldn't keep me from receiving what God is offering me today. The possibility of an ending can't be my reason not to live and love fully where I'm at and who I'm with. 

So maybe I need to learn an adult version of that song I knew so well as a kid: "hello, goodbye." Maybe I need to discover the paradoxical rhythm of this exchange so that both the welcomes and the farewells are each valued for what they are instead of resented. That evening the endings are seen as a special kind of grace because the One who is behind all of it remains good and true.