And then I am going.
Four hours from here. From this little white house. From the peach and the plum trees. From the hens. From the books and the memories and the dreams. From childhood. From youth.
From my family.
Four hours from my family for two years.
I cannot even express the pull on my heart right now. How many salty tears are trailing down my face. How my hands are shaking.
I have never loved anyone so much as I love my family.
I have always been Wendy. It became so obvious to me last night as I wrapped myself in a quilt and wrote letters to my father and my sister and I sobbed. I was always Wendy. With the flying and the stories and the loving of Peter. The full heart and the tears and the responsibilities. The stubbornness. The thimbles and the little house. The fascination with fairies. The mermaids. The dreams.
I stood on the cusp of womanhood last night. Peter pulling on my nightdress. Saying, come with me. Fly away with me. Come back to Neverland.
But I couldn't.
I am already grown.
There are lost boys Peter, I told him, more of them than your's. I need to find them. I need to help them. I need to help people. And he cried. Loud, ripping sobs. And so did I.
The moon even cried with us last night.
We cannot always stay young.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done. Saying goodbye, but also saying, I'll be back. I promise I'll come back. My mouth is full of salt and tears. I've never had that happen to me before. And I have cried, I have wept my heart out. But never this, this taste. Mingled with my breath and the blankets I press against my mouth as I try to catch the scent of my favorite girl, the one flying across the world. Part of me says that I can't do it. The little Wendy says that. Barefoot in her nightgown. Trembling at the window. I just want to sit down and give up and quit. I just want to stay. I can't do this, she says. And it's the truth.
But then I look in the mirror.
And she's already older. She's already a woman. She has to do this. She couldn't even remember how to fly if she wanted to. It's all gone now. And so, she can do this.
I can do this.
When I was tiny and smaller and little, I used to wish my heart out to leave this place. It seemed lonely and godforsaken. But I was just selfish.
Now I wish I could take all of that back.
Can I just say that? Can I just really be honest? This seems too big. This seems too hard. God has captured my heart so kindly and gently this past year. He has shaped me and directed me in a new way. He has pushed, with a strong hand on the small of my back. He has led and guided me in a beautiful way. And now my eyes are open. Now I am less selfish. Now I see where I am supposed to go, what I am supposed to do, this mountain I am climbing. This mountain I am to move.
Today that mountain seems too big.
And that's okay. I am learning that. I am learning it is okay to doubt. To think you can't do this. To just fall on your face and weep. I am learning it is okay to miss people before you're even gone. Because God is with me. He is building me, growing me. He gives me things that seem too big.
Because nothing is impossible for me.
Even when I am that woman-Wendy, and I run back to the nursery in fear that someone will tell me to grow up. Someone will dare me to move, to change. Someone will make me. And so I sit in the rocking chair with my knees pulled to my chest trying to make myself smaller, trying to will myself to fly. Trying to disappear. I know, even then, that nothing is too hard for me. That nothing is too big for me. That nothing is impossible for me. This threshold I have to cross over is huge, a gap that is yawning, a chasm that is wide. But it is not impossible. It feels that way, but it is not.
I laid in my bed last night and tried to remember everything. All of my best and greatest moments. All of the loveliest times. It is so important right now that I do that. This change, this transition, is heartbreaking. It is gut-wrenching. It is full of sobs and blossoming with newness and aching in my bones with growth. To remember right now makes it even harder, but it also speaks to the gorgeousness and the grace of this. I am not alone in it; I am never alone and never have been. There are people near and dear to me who feel the same things. Who suffer through these changes with me. And it is that mutual suffering that makes this state of being all the harder and all the better.
I need to make room in my heart for new memories. For new people. For new friendships. I am not saying goodbye, I am only leaving for a little while. And then I will come back with all of them, and share and share and share. We go on adventures to tell those that we love about them.
So I am reminding myself of that. And I remembering everything else.
It is very possible, that I have lived one of the most magical lives. One of those itseemstoogoodandtooperfecttobereal lives. The ones with forts in the backyard and rope swings in the maple trees. With hours of searching for fairies and days of living in palaces. A life with a hundred books. A childhood with a million dreams. Years of discoveries and experiments and challenges. With butterflies collected in teacups and dragonflies hidden in pockets. With secret meetings in the pear tree. With stargazing on the roof. With picnics in the hot sun on a quilt your mother made. With hands pressed in the cool dirt, the earth, as you plant tulips in a row. A life of mystery. A childhood of pages and pages of poems. Years of love and love and love and friendship. The sweetest friendship with your sisters and your brother.
A life of togetherness.
And then there's the salt again, in my mouth.
I never thought I was Wendy. That's probably why this is too hard. Why this mountain is too big. Five years ago, if you would have looked at me and handed me "Peter Pan" and said, it's you. You are her, I would have scoffed. Threw back my head and laughed. Now I wring my hands and cry. Because it would have been the truth you told me then. I am so pitiful I did not even know myself.
This is the best thing about me, that I cherish like this. That I love this hard.
I am Wendy Darling, and I never want to be anyone else.
I miss so much this morning, that pushing mountains is something I won't do today.
And that is okay.
I am fine with that.
