Tomorrow and Yesterday

Tonight is one of those nights when tomorrow suddenly feels too close and too big.

I think maybe over the course of the past few months I haven't really been serious, at least not totally, in thinking about what September is going to bring. But on certain nights, like tonight, I know that there's going to come a curtain call when I'll get into my bed in my room in my house for the last time as a permanent resident. After that, home will be somewhere else, somewhere very far away if God blesses me with a sunshiny future as I hope. If all my dreams come true and I end up sailing away across a clear blue sky, off to new adventures and new faces, where I'll experience great hope and great disappointment and tremendous courage and deep love, it still means that here and now will be over, and yesterday is gone.

I can always come back of course, but it won't be the same. Not like when I was little. I won't miss high school; in fact, I'm planning on doing my best to forget most of these days. Nearly every good memory that I've accumulated over the past four years is now soured. But I remember a time back when everything was simple, and good and pure, and the world was a fairyland, and my worst fear was a nightmare soon soothed away by loving words. I'll miss that. I'll miss when everything seemed easy. Love used to be such a simple thing to grasp.
Picnics on the back porch. Lemonade. Cozy winter nights spent puzzling in the dining room. The gentle sound of my dad's heartbeat next to my ear.

What's coming may be a thousand times better than everything I've ever known. It will be adventure and trial and triumph.

But it won't be the same. And at least for a while, it won't be home.

I'm afraid. I've been afraid for a long time, but not as long as I can remember. No, I can still recall those cherry blossom days, and they give me courage when I need it. When there comes a wrinkle in one's soul, it seems impossible to let go, unless remembering is possible. As a child, I knew nothing but that at the end of each day, I would be safe in my father's house.

But even now, nothing has changed. I know that at the end of each day, for the rest of my life, I will be safe in my Father's house. So I will remember that and smile, and maybe then I won't find it so hard to fly away.