Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Tim and I have a long history with goodbyes. When I finally bit the bullet and locked that boy down in a committed relationship, it was 3 weeks before I moved to Ireland for 13 months. I was 21 and he was 23. We were virgins, if you can believe it! We were SO IN LOVE. Poetry, public sobbing, hours and hours of phone calls, hand-written love letters, clinging to each other in airports til the last possible minute - we were that young couple. 
We flew back and forth across the world to get a few days together every few months. I moved to Dublin in July. He came to visit in September. I flew home to San Diego for Christmas and he flew me up to the Northwest to meet his family. He came to Dublin and proposed in March. I flew home again in May to find wedding locations and attend our first date buddies (we doubled at Disney) wedding in Oklahoma. I was home for good in August. We got married in a huge church wedding in January and were off to Vancouver, WA in March. 
Yes, it was a whirlwind. We were only officially a couple and in the same room for 6 weeks before we were engaged. But for us, we knew this was IT on our very first date. We didn't get together right away (I had just committed to moving to Dublin - not the best timing ever) but our eventual coupling was absolutely inevitable. The momentum was building and we just hopped on for the ride of our lives. 
As you can imagine, almost 10 years of marriage, 2 kids, 6 years of ministry, and physical and mental health challenges later, a lot has changed. Sometimes being together is hard. Not because our relationship is hard but because life is hard. And any forever relationship will be subject to the difficulties of life, no matter how tightly you hold onto each other. 
Tim and I just said goodbye. He's going on a much-needed solo road trip to visit some friends now before his work life gets too busy. 
As the time drew to a close, we woke up the kids. I made him breakfast to go. We took pictures. We hugged and kissed again and again. We professed our love. Finally, he got in the car and drove away waving to me. And you know what? As much as life has changed, it really, really hasn't. My heart fit right back into that groove of loss without him. I shed a few tears. I hugged my kids. And I felt like I really needed to write this post, just to capture that feeling. That oh so familiar feeling. It feels like when you get on a boat and it takes a few minutes to get your sea legs. You're wobbly and disoriented. It's physically obvious to the people around you that you're off your game. Of course, you adjust and adapt to the movement of the boat. But you don't feel really right until you're on dry land again.