I could feel the heat of the asphalt still rising from the warm summer day. My heels clacked loudly as I walked back towards my car. Warm tears built up behind my eyes.
“Don’t cry.” I said to myself. I’m not much of a public crier.
I heard my friends’ laughter, and so I turned and waved goodbye. I stood there for a bit, watching them walk off.
I fumbled for my car keys, as I felt tears creeping down my face. The dam that held them there finally crashed.
I started the car, put the iPod on shuffle and began the long drive home.
Do you ever have those moments where your iPod is playing the perfect music for that one moment? Well this was one of those moments.
Coldplay’s, “Fix You” came on and nostalgia dripped out my speakers.
Nearly five years ago, the summer before college, I was driving home from a late night with these same friends. I don’t remember much about that night, but just that I laughed so hard my stomach was sore. I remember thinking I had better hurry, because I had curfew.
As I speed back to my house, “Fix You” came on. I hummed along for a bit. But suddenly, it was one of those moments that you know you need to soak in. Like, if you don’t capture this in your mind, you will forget it. Lose it. So I embraced it.
I rolled down my windows as I crossed over Lake Ray Hubbard and I turned up the stereo. I let my left hand fly free out the window. I smiled and thought of how God had blessed me with such great friends. That He was about to take us on a great adventure in college. That this was only the beginning to something bigger in our lives.
You see, life is not what I thought it would be at twenty-three. I am doing nothing with the degree I worked for. I have traveled to unthinkable places. Have had so many experiences and broken hearts. So much life has happened in those five years.
My two best friends, sisters really, are now married and going on great adventures in life.
A few of us met up together for dinner before my dear friend Andrea and her husband left for Philly. We laughed, and shared one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. But that night, I don’t think it was the food that made it so great, but rather the company. As we had our final sips of Illy coffee and still laughing about something when I couldn’t help but think that this was a little shadow of what heaven might look like.
But as I walked back to my car, I couldn’t help but be a little sad. Part of me was sad that I was being left behind. That this was it, that I would never see them again. That I wouldn’t have grand nights like that night.
But as Chris Martin crooned in my car stereo, a smile crept on my face. I got a flashback to five years ago, when we were departing for college. I knew that this was another one of those moments that I should soak in, remember.
I rolled the windows down and left my left hand fly free in the warm summer air as I drove down I-75.
But I knew that my friends moving to different places, wasn’t a goodbye. But rather, it was another beginning to a new stage in our lives. This was just the Diaspora.
