Going.

Today I went back and took a look at my very first post to this blog. It was about staying. I am a big believer in staying. I also said in my first post, "I'll write about the wonder of going some other time. But for now I will stay."

I did stay. For two more years.

I love staying. Staying grants the ability to be known. I have no desire to be a runaway.

But I left. I did go. That is a true aspect of who I am, who I always will be. I stayed longer than most. But I left.

Kind of.

Going is interesting. It was actually very, very difficult to go. We grieved over the Summer before we left. A good friend of mine said that,  "It was like a funeral, and you were the ones dying."

I didn't like dying. But the going has been everything it needed to be. We needed to know that we could go. That we could walk away from four stable jobs, family, friends… And do well.

We needed to know that it was possible.

But in some very real ways, big pieces of our hearts, indeed, of our very beings, are still there.

But we fully left. I have not thought for a moment that we "never really left". Our leaving home has always been intensely real. But it has been in the leaving that we have discovered what we really love(d).

I think that going is almost necessary. I say "almost" because I don't think that most things are universally true. I think that with good discernment, one can know whether they should stay or go (are you fulfilled?).

Both staying and going are good. Use them both to their fullest potential. Stay because you're passionate about what you're staying for. Go because you need something that simply cannot be found where you are.