a difficult goodbye.

In my mind there is a jumbled confusion that spans between the time when I committed to come here and now. My feelings then of ignorant excitement and exuberance in the spring of 2009, rejoicing and squealing on my college campus about my near future, don't compare to what I'm feeling now: exhaustion, frustration, sadness, love, nostalgia, regret, disappointment, relief.

Never have I been so tired. I'm exhausted. My job became increasingly exhausting up until the last day. So much emotion wears one down. I'm sure I've aged more than I should have in the past year.

I've never felt more frustrated with an organization as a whole, especially one that bears the name of Christ. Unnecessarily exerting authority, mistreating employees and parents based on gender, economical status, and false pretenses, and lying to students in order to provoke certain behaviors are not actions that imitate those of Christ.

Harder than anything I've faced this year, or at any point in this life, however, was goodbye to my fourth graders. I've never been so desperate to cherish the last moments, memorize the warmth of their hugs, burn the image of their faces into my mind, remember each of their laughs, or desperately show them, if I had failed at some point, just how much I love them. I've never loved other people in this capacity or to this extent or with this much depth, and I've never been so utterly heart-broken. These children are so precious to me, and it pierces the heart when tears roll down their faces, and they fall into your arms. I could feel their heaving sobs, and all I could return were tears. There was no consolation in those last desperate embraces.

Approaching the end of this year, my anxiousness to return home far exceeded my sadness in leaving, but that no longer holds true. Saying goodbye is so hard. I think a good measure of love is the difficulty of the goodbye the ensues.