A lot can happen in a week. Last Monday, the offer on the house came in. And today I sit in the Vancouver airport, waiting for my flight to London.
I marvel at what was accomplished in that time. A house was sorted, packed, and moved into storage. Items were sold, donated and recycled. It makes me profoundly grateful for the people who surround and support me.
It has not just been “the usual suspects.” Yes, the friends and family who I spoke of in The people who sustain me are still there for me. But I found new layers of connection.
My children came, and their cousins, and the children of family friends. They brought their enthusiasm to loading furniture and reminiscing about the house and yard that was a large setting of their childhoods, about the gatherings and games they all remembered. And, adults now, their relationship with me shifted and grew with the shared work and laughter.
New friends were there as well. It has been years since I made a new friend, but in the intensity and openness of the last 6 months I have been surprised to find relationships develop at an astonishingly rapid speed. A friend who I have only known for 2 months asked if I needed boxes for packing- and only after he dropped them off did I realize that they were not passed on moving supplies but new boxes bought for me.
I realize that I met another new friend only four months ago, yet it feels like I’ve known her for years. Perhaps it’s what she calls my “brutal honesty” that allows such immediate connection. I know that I do not have time for dissembling and shallow interactions.
In London, before a wedding, I will spend time with two women I met in university, when we were all still teenagers, and their husbands, whom I have known almost as long. Although we have not been together for years, I know we will slide right back into the smoothly flowing river of our relationships. Yet when I think about it, I realize we began our friendships in the honesty of youth, before we developed the protective shells of adulthood.
I have called this my year of brave travel, but I think it will be more than just new places I will be discovering.
Brave Travels 