The House of Flora

   I don't do endings well.
   Inevitably, the budding blossoms of a Tennessee spring always come to meet me where we last left off. The cushioning between January and April is filled with vibrant days. The innocent moments coat themselves in milky compassion and honey laughter: they do not realize their own preciousness or their fleetingness. When the skeletal month of May comes, the days peel away their clothing. They become naked, raw, and hot with vacancy.
 
   Everything hurts.
           Everything hurts.

    Today,
       Even my skin
                Hurts.

      May is the constant, inevitable reminder that things change. Endings come. We are on limited time. I recoil in late April. I'm torrential rain by May.

       I used to believe if one writes well,
       Even letters will suffice for all the lost days.

       Now, I no longer believe that is true.
   
       There is something about
           The presence of
                     A person.

          Throughout my life I have been devoted to the power of words: their succulence, and their ability to capture life. But there is something about the laughter of a friend, the warmth of an embrace, and the magic of hysterical moments spent over meme sharing and chai tea. I have (as of late) been in a state of desperation for these moments. I cannot seem to be able to satiate my need for them due to my knowledge of the ending that is coming. My neediness has been overwhelming to my friends. I am demanding of their attention because I selfishly have too much trouble saying: "I love you."
       Showing my vulnerability is difficult. I am transparent in almost all things--except for that. I cannot count on both hands the times that I have left others before they could leave me. Usually the people that matter to me I never say goodbye to. I avoid goodbye parties. I slip out the back door early at graduation. I won't help friends with their luggage at the airport because ending embraces require my entire capacity. I leave.
        I am scared of my life because I am now my own--I am all my own, and I am all on my own. Where I used to feel comfortable showing my ache to others, I got tired of them always sticking their fingers in my wounds. So I built The Little House of Flora--my house, and I was certain that would be enough for shelter.
       When I met with Kevin Hester, he asked me: "What good is a house with no one inside of it?" I understood where he was coming from...but allowing people to come in is difficult because seeing them leave hurts this much. I leave them welcome to my porches, my swingsets, my gardens, my kind words, my lemonade, my walkway. But when the long day is over, I vanish inside my corridors; I fall asleep to tears and the sound of a fairytale spinning its story on my static television set. And everyone goes home.
     
       There are things that
                 Letters will never send.

        Letters will never send how much I will miss you. And states may just be states...but to me, they feel like galaxies. I feel as though I am alone in my life, like a tumbleweed. I am blown about by the winds and the seasons.
        You changed that for me. I don't think I have ever told you that.
        The melancholy pools of loneliness became fit for puddle jumping. I saw my validity in Christ through a clear lens because you shattered the deceptive looking glasses that I kept choosing to view my life through. I am sad you are leaving because I am staying. I am staying right here--rooted in my little corner of the world where your wisdom still hangs its hat, and your encouragement still blossoms behind the walls of my gardens.
      I will hold on to you far after you exceed the boundaries of my Richland and flood into the warm hills of a paved Kentucky. My morning coffee will be lonely. My people watching at Fido will go un-entertained without your perspective on all of the peculiar strangers in all of their peculiar hats. You will not be here to help me pick out my peculiar hats. You will not be here to pull me  back down [like gravity] when I'm manic and irrational. Who will I share my peanut butter with?
 
      I am not handling these things so well.

     And though I know you are not a fan of Pearl Jam, I can't help but think of Eddie Vedder's words:

     "Did I say that I need you?
      Did I say that I want you?

      Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see;
      No one knows this more than me...
                                    As I come clean."

    I come clean. I will miss you big and deep and very very wide. And I will have many grey days, even when the sun is shining and everything should be okay. And I will probably even miss you into August: after the summer should have stifled out the peak of my loneliness. Even if all the good reasons for my missing fade, I will probably create new reasons to miss you with. And maybe that's not healthy, and maybe that's not what friends do. But I have never known what a healthy missing looks like, because I have never had a real friend before...until I met you.
   You are the first best friend I have ever had.
    I am sad you are leaving,
    Because you are the only person who has ever stayed.

    And I'm not ready for this Little House to change
    Without

                You.