leaving is a theme that is prominent in my writing. no surprises there. some of it is vague and can be applied anywhere. it can be about leaving a job you love, or leaving a person, or leaving a country, or leaving a religion. it can be what you need it to be, because like i’ve said before, nobody talks about leaving. nobody talks about the grief that comes with it. or, not enough people do. we aren’t comfortable enough with the themes of leaving, because of our cultural equation of leaving equaling failure. speaking specifically to my own worldview and cultural space, of course. recognising that in different spaces, it might not look the same. but here we are, leaving. talking about leaving.
whatever you’re leaving, whether you are leaving something or just having a read about it anyway, whether you’re considering leaving — i want you to remember this:
it’s an ongoing journey.
you leave in new ways, all the time. you leave the space, or the person, and then you find the ways that they still are a part of your life. and you leave that, too. you leave the worldviews, the mindsets that hold you captive, the ideals you no longer need to carry, the memories…
you get the idea.
and i found this so prominently with my own story. with my own leaving.
i left people. i left church spaces. i left relationships. and for the longest time, i left myself. i left and i had to keep leaving. to leave in new ways. i had to leave the ways that religion held me, leave the ways purity culture taught me to be, leave the lessons i’d learned about how i should exist in the world.
and i wonder if leaving isn’t also, coming home.
because every time we leave, we give ourselves an opportunity to come home, again. again and again. as many times as we need to.
so this is a brief glimpse at what leaving looked like, for me.
and how i came home, each time.