A blessing as you go

So you're off tomorrow on this much anticipated, perhaps equally feared adventure.

I haven't had the chance to tell you that on the same day you're leaving, I'm leaving too.

I'm not going as far as you, nor for as long. But I feel many of the same things you do. (Except the dread of packing.) Unlike you, I'm going somewhere I've never even been. Somewhere not only a great geographical distance away but also possibly outside any cultural precedent. I don't know what awaits me there, other than a few friendly faces. That is a very underrated feature, I know, but still I wonder what else there will be.

For a change, I have decided to stop trying to plan for all the possibilities I can think of. I'll just go. I have everything I need. I'll be back before I know it, back in this comfortable -- too comfortable? -- sanctuary where my crunchingly dry soul has found nourishment.

Why, then, should I bother going? This is what the pragmatic -- and lazy -- side of me wants to know. If I'll be gone and back before the moon has really even begun to wane, isn't it all just a huge waste of human energy and fossil fuel?

Image from you

I don't have the whole answer yet, but this much I know: the point isn't in where I finally decided to go, or how long I'm staying.

It's about whether I'll take the trip at all, and who I'm going with.

No donkey, lynx or sister in stuffed toy photography this time.

Just me. And Him. And more space than I've let myself be used to in this past year of, yet again, trying to fit myself into a box that wasn't me-shaped at all.

I wanted to offer you a blessing for your journey and the time you will spend up North. Instead I find myself reflecting on the blessing that you already are, whether you know it or not. You bless not through your performance or your sacrifice, not by your voice or your words. You bless simply by being, by daring to reveal that being in all her broken-then-redeemed glory.

Thank you for so blessing me with the inestimable gift of an unhidden heart. I wish I could express in words all that I wish for you in these three months to come. Since I can't, I instead offer you my footsteps alongside. Stay safe. Stay loved. And stay in touch.