ruminations

I've been doing a lot of processing and ruminating lately. 

I've always yearned for authenticity in friendships. This yearning has often lead to me being someone who is guilty of "the overshare". {Here I am. Know me. Looove me.}

These last two years we've lived with a total of 3 people "outside" of our family although they've all become very much a part of ours. It's been good and sometimes tricky to not have our own space. I look forward to walking into our living room in my pajamas in the mornings. Or having a private conversation with Jamie in our living room. But I will miss having others around to interact with and build those connections with as well as see our boys do the same.

I've become close friends with Kelly during our time in Uganda and we've "done life" together - during weekly play dates and sleepovers and the rare {coveted} time we hang out with no kids. I said to Jamie last night that I am so sad this season of our friendship is over. I'm in mourning. 

I've been reading a book where the author talks about the idea of "being brave" with your friends. And I love that. Because sometimes {most times} honesty and authenticity and vulnerability requires courage and bravery. I can think of at least two friends that I can always count on to be brave and honest with me and those that I can be brave and honest with as well, knowing there's a foundation of love and friendship to rest on when the truth can hurt.

I've missed my friends and my community back in Canada/Guelph and I've experienced some sweet fellowship over skype and emails, but it doesn't compare with the face-to-face conversations I've had here and I had before we moved here.

We're not meant to live alone, isolated, without community. We're meant to live in community. Brushing shoulders with one another. Laughing loudly. Crying together. Making and eating food with each other and in each other's homes. Holding each others' kids and celebrating birthdays together. 

I'm not sure I always embraced community during these last two years, but the times I did, I don't regret. 

things I will miss 2.0 {an ongoing series}

This weekend we said good-bye to our dearest friends here in Uganda.
It sucked.

I am overwhelmed with the kindness of God when I think back on these past two years and the bright light that my friendship with Kelly has been.
I will miss hanging out with Kelly and her boys. I will miss watching our boys tear around their house and being the three musketeers or Star Wars or Angry Birds characters. They all played so well together and I can even recall a time when we had to separate them or give time outs or anything. I will miss the ease and welcome we felt in their home to just be. I will miss sitting down in the dining room or living room with a cup of coffee and sharing our lives and the things God had been teaching us or the books we'd been reading or the music we'd been listening to.
I will miss the beauty of the drive home coming down the various hills and seeing the city and the cathedral with the sun glinting off the dome on top.
I will miss this wonderful friend and gift from God. I will miss this season of friendship and this "doing life" with someone who intimately understands exactly what I am going through. Oh we'll still be friends - but this next year with them in New Jersey and us in Canada, distance will alter the way our friendship looks.
When I ask the boys what they will miss about Uganda, they always say "Seth & Caleb!".
Yup. We'll miss you, Hallahans!