22 July 2011

FIVE MINUTE FRIDAY

Full Enough

Happy Five Minute Friday!  Five minutes of pure, unedited, writing for writing's sake without worrying if it's just right.  Topic's courtesy of Gypsy Mama

Today's topic?  

Full.

GO

As I write this, I am waiting for my very best friend in all the world to arrive with her family.  We have both lived all over the world, and we have been blessed this past year to live within a day's drive of each other.  But today is different.  Today marks the beginning of our last time together.  For a long time, anyway.  They are preparing to move to California.

I knew this day was coming.  And we are going on vacation for a week together, so I am trying with all my might to not think about the goodbye part, and about how much that is going to suck.

I'm trying to fill up with nothing more than the joy of my family and her family together.  Of our kids spending endless hours running around, chasing each other, getting into trouble together.

Trying to be full, but knowing the emptiness will come.  

The emptiness comes, but we still have to fill ourselves, even though it won't last forever.

We must take the moments that fill us up.  Use them to make it through until the next time.

It's the same when my husband has to travel for work.  This summer, he's been gone during the week and home on the weekend.  And every Friday when he comes home I'm tempted to think about the time he'll be gone again, about the emptiness I'll feel.

But I push it down, willing myself to allowed to be filled with love.  With friendship.  With togetherness.  Because it's the filling that keeps me going through the emptiness.

It's worth it.  Oh yes, every single time.  Worth the goodbye at the end, [for the moments of fullness in between].

STOP

How do you fill up?  What keeps you full?  Where does the fullness come from?

Be sure to click over to Gypsy Mama to read Lisa Jo's painful and beautiful writing about being full, and visit some of the other links as well.  There are 74 (!) entries before mine, and I'm sure more will follow me.  

3 comments:

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  2. Dear Tracey,

    I love your honesty and this living in the fullness of the gifts and not the knowledge of the coming emptiness really speaks to my heart today. I am in the midst of an overseas transition and my heart hurts so much yet there is a fullness of living that makes the leaving hard and as soon as I forsake that full living, well, I don't even want to think about it!

    Bless you, sister, and your time with your dear friend:)

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  3. "it's the filling that keeps me going through the emptiness." Great reminder - sometimes I shy away from experiences/relationships because I do not keep this in mind.

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