the end of an era // freewrite

i made a hard choice. my heart felt like it was shattering into little pieces, into fragments i know i'll never put back together again quite the same way.

i made the hard call and made the hard choice and it all just hurts, 

because closing chapters is never easy,

letting loved ones down is never easy,

saying goodbye is never easy,

letting go is never easy.

this life is never easy.

i feel stuck in the tension of that today. like i finally let go of the last shred i was holding onto from that past life, that sunny, southwest chapter of my life, that one with the stucco house and the big church and the whole rowdy crew of friends. like i finally let the cracked door close shut, and the sound of it is still ringing its echoes in my ears.

i know the chapter is finished. it has been fading further into the past as the years go by and i keep calling this new place home, but the finality of it all makes me ache.

when the place was so good and the people were so good and it all meant so much for so many years, it's hard to let it go. it's hard to realize that as much as i want to hold on to that chapter, that place, those people, they're in the past. there's nothing and nobody reaching back out from that world to hold back onto me. it's a closed chapter. a past memory. 

an end of an era.

the tension is real, between the mourning and the celebrating of the things now in the past. the laughing about the memories we had and crying that there won't be new ones to make. the longing for the closeness of those years while relishing in all the goodness of these years too.

so i wonder...

what keeps people close?

what keeps them apart?

is it miles? minutes? memories? 

is it a mystery?

i think it is.

to that sunny state, to those beloved best friends, to the decade spent growing up alongside the saguaros... the era has ended but i'm clinging close to the memories. i'm holding on desperately yet lightly too, in a way, knowing it's not my world anymore, but it once was, and that's enough for me.

it's never easy, this life thing, this moving on and letting go and closing chapters thing.

it's never easy, letting eras end.

to all it was.

and to all this next one will be...