The Art of Leaving Well

One thing I've learned through many moves over the years is that leaving well is an art form, not a formula.

It would be easier if it were a formula: I could make a list, check off all the boxes, and tie up all the loose ends before moving on.

But that's not how life works. Uprooting is a messy, unpredictable business. Just as I successfully pull up one tie to a place, I inadvertently establish another. Somehow I always manage to be putting down new roots until the actual moment of being transplanted.

I'm moving away from Munich in less than a month, and it is really tempting to check out now. But I’m still here. If I’m called to bloom where I’m planted, that means I’m called to bloom here until the day I go. 

So even while I set up final visits with friends, I allow myself to spend time with new acquaintances. I initiate a four-week Bible study with a teenager from church. I invite a couple of kids over for a tea party.

I visit familiar haunts for the last time while still discovering new, delightful places.

Even while I'm preparing to leave, I still live here. There are still things for me to do here.

None of this means living in denial. Closure is important. But the truth is that there will always be loose ends. There will always be unfinished conversations and unexplored possibilities and things on the to-do list that never got done. People that I wish I’d sought out over the last two years that it’s now time to say goodbye to. It’s enough to make me crazy. 

In the weeks before I graduated from college, I was under immense pressure and immense blessing. I was preemptively grieving the loss of a community that was precious to me while daily receiving all the riches that community had to offer. I did not know how to process it all, and I was afraid that I would leave important things undone - that somehow I would miss something crucial and have no chance to rectify my mistake.

During that time the Lord gave me a word through a friend: "Rest easy. I'll take care of the loose ends. Fear not. Trust Me."

While this transition is not nearly as devastating as that one was, it is good for me to remember the assurance God gave me in the midst of it.

It’s a reminder that the work I’ve been doing here in relationships and community isn’t actually my work: it’s the Lord’s work. And it is being accomplished in His timing. If it feels unfinished to me, that’s ok, because I’m not the one responsible to finish it - He is.  

In the meantime, I write myself reminders, give myself space to grieve and to rejoice, hang out with friends, and practice the art of leaving well.