Final Countdown

There is something to be said about the intimacy you can create between you and another person.

In two days we will lay our angel of a business to rest.  My emotions are somewhat similar to when I sat by my mother's bedside waiting for her to die.  Not nearly as intense but similar.  I think of all of the memories we have created with our EDGE family, the relationships we have built and regret that there is not more time to continue building them.  I want desperately to hang on, to keep going, to persevere, and yet I know this is the end.

Unlike many people I embrace change.  I thrive on it.  It excites me and gets my heart pounding.  I feel alive.  I know that my next chapter will be just as challenging, beautiful, and rewarding as this one has been but as I sit at this vigil it is hard for me to see.

I don't like to measure things as "successes" or "failures" but rather how have I changed and what  have I learned.  This much I know.  I am passionate. I am creative. I am dedicated. I take risks. I like to "live on the edge".  I am rich beyond measure in the currency of human kindness.  I am terrible with money, I lack a desire to obtain it.  I lack a desire to manage it and simply wish we didn't have to deal with it.  It is the one thing with utmost certainty that we will never take with us.

I have been afforded this luxury of not thinking about money because my husband is a wonderful provider.  I have the freedom to not really worry about it.  Unfortunately that freedom led to the demise of our dear business.  It is one of my fatal flaws - but I am OK with it.

The number one thing I learned from the EDGE and the skill that will most certainly be most valuable throughout the rest of my life is this.  Take the risk to get to know a person, to love them and to care for them without reservation or hesitation.  Before the EDGE I was afraid to do this.  I was more concerned with what someone would think of me.  How juvenile.

It took a long time for me to relax enough to embrace the brand new face walking through the door.  You have to be willing to open yourself up in order to see into someone else.  I don't know intimate details of these lives.  For most, I don't even know what they do outside of coming to the Edge.  Does that matter? No.  My relationship with these people is deep even though words may not be a part of it.  I know when someone is having a bad day.  I know when someone just needs a touch of kindness.  I know when someone needs to be encouraged.  Words have nothing to do with it.

When I journeyed through cancer my relationship with God became the same way.  Sometimes words are not enough.  Sometimes words are just words.  They can't possibly hold the weight of emotion.  I used to lie in bed and have a conversation with God.  I still do on occasion but mostly I just invite Him in.  I open myself up to Him and just "be".   I think when you can just "be" with someone,  dare to look them in the eyes and "see" them - that is when a relationship is built.  Where things are no longer superficial but intimate.

These relationships, these people, make me a better person and they will stay with me long after the end of the Edge.  So I challenge you.  Make relationships.  Dare to "see" the person in front of you in line.  Be willing to let them "see" you.  The Edge was a safe place where love was bountiful but guess what? The world is that way too.  You just have to be willing to open yourself up see it.