Sugar Tears

It's hard to say goodbye. Our two year Canadian adventure comes to a close this week. I leave here with new lines on the map of my life...and new lines on my face. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what I have learned here and for the friendships I've made in this chapter of my life. With each of the people whom I've met in this place, our stories intersected, some briefly passing through and some lingering. Some of these stories will continue and some will become memories.
Yesterday I was visiting with my little soul sister, Karine, while I waited for my laundry. Our eyes met and we both cried realizing that time was up and we wouldn't share our lives everyday like we have been. The tears aren't sad, but sweet and warm. I don't get to keep the everyday but I do get to keep that love that I feel for and from people. That love makes me warm. I can feel that warmth like a thousand little fires inside of me.
Later that evening I was on the phone, speaking to my sister Sari in Utah and I told her that I loved her and I cried then too. I felt that love that I have for her overflow into tears. A different place and a different relationship but it's all about one thing...love.

My beautiful husband Dan has accepted a job at Brigham Young University in Utah. He was given three job offers. All three jobs offered different things. Two of them would have been new adventures in new places, and I wanted that, but one was right for our family. Utah is the place were I've spent most of my life and in my head it was like returning to high school after I'd been to university. But now I realize, we are returning to that place as different people than we were when left. Dan, my kids and I even look different to me. Maybe I just see us differently. The last two years changed each of us for the better.
I've heard stories about people who have had near death experiences or fought an illness, something that jolted them out of the familiar and gave them a clear look at the life that they were living and what really mattered. That's what I feel like this time has given me, an awareness and clarity as to what is important. Former to my experiences here, I was searching for depth and meaning. I gave up that search. It was only then that I realized I had it. My life has depth and meaning and has had that all along. I just hope I can hold onto this clarity.
It's time to begin a new chapter in an old book.