Superior Sadness

Two of my best friends are leaving Korea. Another loss. Another shift. People who have made me laugh and lighten up. People who get me. People who I will miss.

I struggle returning annually to Indiana to work and visit my family. I work so much in these five weeks that I really don’t experience my family. But then proximity, I think, has been the only thing that we ever shared as something in common. And I have come to honor and rever that we at least have that.

In addition to the loss of my two friends in Korea, I am losing my program at INTERLINK Language Center at Valparaiso University due to program growth. The program has grown too much and will transition from a five week program once a year into nine week programs offered five times a year. An amazing colleague has stepped up to lead this as I won’t return to the US.

Loss? Change? I am sad. Sad to lose the easy connection of my friends in Korea. Never again will our interactions have the same nuances and qualities. Never again will the beauty of our moments ever be able to be recreated.

I am sad to lose the pilgrimage to Indiana. I am sad to lose the opportunity for explosive growth reconnecting with my family, my local community, my roots, and the reminder of knowing why I am written as I am.

I am scared and fear that my pattern of life, the erratic people shifts and job insecurity, will make me shut down. It is with soft, tentative exhilaration that I breathe deep and welcome what the universe will blow into all my newly open doors.

Is it time for an extraordinary shift for me, or will I continue on my path of incremental changes? Extraordinary shifts are much for comfortable for me; they are exciting epiphanies. Incremental changes are more difficult; they are boring nuances that I still don’t have eyes to see the joy easily. My friends helped me see the joy in the small changes. How will I not tire of the effort to see joy in the simple? It is so difficult for me these days.

"My purpose was to find a purpose, to find the deepest courage in myself, to look for the extraordinary growth, not just the ordinary, day-to-day growth, which is certainly valid, but it was the kind of incremental journeying my whole life had been about. I wanted to step outside of that, to really open the door wide, which is why I liked the symbolism of kayaking around Lake Superior. It was so wide I couldn't see across it, couldn't see what was on the other side, and that was just the magnitude of change I was inviting. To grow beyond the expectations we're raised with is a radical act, but one I felt was necessary to claiming my full self." Ann Linnea’s story as told by Greg Lavoy on soulfulliving.com