tearful goodbyes

Our last night together, Pequena in Brooklyn.

I will never get used to this.

Living in the Philippines, I don’t get to visit my sister and mother in America so regularly and saying goodbye is always a toughie. When I was younger and living in the US, it was the same with my dad who lived in Asia. Today, I cried a lot of the way in our livery service to the airport. Luckily my mother was there, in rare form, holding space, her hand on mine, making use of my vulnerability to impart some motherly wisdom on love because for a change I am not fighting her.

How does one feel whole with a heart so spread out, my mom in Los Angeles, my sister in New York, my dad all the way in the Philippines, dear friends spread across those cities and a great deal in between? My subtle center feels stretched out and I’m reminded of my time in Colorado earlier this summer, trying to take in the thin air at 8,000 feet.

I’ve checked in and I’m now sitting at the departure lounge awaiting my flight to Hong Kong--and I’m still crying. I feel like I’ve tapped into this deep well of emotion. At this point, I’m not sure what I’m crying about. So much has happened these last 3 months, which has been full of the blessings of human connection, not all of them easy.

I wrote a couple of weeks back about the expansiveness of the heart, how I felt it could stretch out infinitely. As I try to calm myself, well, from myself, I remember that idea. (I’d also like to stop spontaneously bursting into tears by the time we board, its uncomfortable having a weepy seatmate for a 16-hour flight!)

So, I imagine filling my stretched out heart with love, inhaling into the negative spaces, until my heart inflates, all robust, like a massive balloon. My love stretches across the planet, encircling all those with whom I resonate. And as I presence each loved one, I hope that they can feel me, that no matter where I am, wherever this journey takes me, they know I am with them just as they are here with me, that is true love, refusing to be bound by the rules of physics. I remind myself again, love, the core of our being, is truly limitless.