Parking Spaces

Two weeks from today, my life will no longer be in Emporia, KS.  I will be finished with my college career and getting ready to start fresh on Monday morning at my new store. 

Exactly 5 years from the day I graduated high school, I'll be settled back home and ready for a brand new chapter, where so many things should be the same and familiar, and yet nothing will be.

My family is entirely different, yet still consists of the same people.  I'll still be doing the same job, with a whole new team and very different machines and challenges.  I'll be in the same house, except now it will feel like a home.  And I'm the same girl I've always been, but a completely different person.

I'm not at all excited to leave the people that I have grown to love here, but I have begun to think about it in a way that makes it easier.  I had the opportunity to spend some time with my wonderful friend Jan last week, and we were discussing how frustrating it is that people that we love are taken far away from us for whatever reason, even when we need them to be close more than ever.  I decided that we all have a parking lot. 

I don't care how silly that sounds, it's true.  People come and go from our lives all the time, and it's because we only have so many spaces for the people we love.  Not that we ever stop loving them, but sometimes people need to leave us for a little while to make a space for someone else to become more important in our lives for a bit. 

I would like to think that as we get older and meet more people and grow, that our parking lot expands with us.  But that doesn't mean that there won't be some slightly painful shuffling while it's under construction.

The amazing family that I have gained here in Emporia will never be any less important to me, but it's time for me to hit the road and make some room for other people.  In my life, and in theirs.  It took me a while to sort through those that deserve their own space and those that should have parked on the street, but that's the beauty of it.  If I had to make a list, the people that I honestly want to/will keep is fairly short, but the people that have taught me something important, even if they left a nasty grease stain in the process, is wonderfully lengthy, and I am perfectly content with that.

As a person that loves to plan and organize, I'm terrified.  The life waiting for me in two weeks is extremely different from the one I saw waiting for me a year ago, six months ago, shoot- it's different from the one I imagined a month ago, but it's mine and I can't wait to see what happens. The goodbyes have started, the boxes are being filled, and that parking lot is about to look very different.