A season of change

I need to talk about my best friend Sara.

First of all she is GORGEOUS.  No one should be allowed to have her eyes AND lips.  One or the other would do fine.  She has both.
Secondly, she has the most perseverance for giving than any one person needs.  She has this almost magical ability to pour, unabashedly into her friends and family - even when they don't deserve it.  She spends her days thinking about how to be more for the people in her world.  Even when they aren't more for her.  She doesn't do this to be a martyr, or to win people over or out of any desperation to be liked.  She does it because she is Sara.  It's in every atom in and around her.  She emits peace even when she is a torrent inside.  Her capacity for empathy would sink any other person.  She feels what you feel 50 times over. Her ridiculous eyes fill with tears when yours can't or won't.
She does absolutely EVERYTHING from the inside out with heart and instinct and humongous love.  She can't help it.  She wears her spirit on the outside when most of us keep it locked up inside. 
She gets sad.  She embraces it and feels it deeply. She works hard to understand it and soothe it.  She is introspective and insightful and never stops growing and facing her fears.  When most of us would shut down; when we would have a drink to drown the fear or anxiety she takes it head on in a cage match.
She seeks a grace filled God even when it means turning her back on a religion that enslaved her for 26 years.  This meant becoming a minority and abandoning a community that brought her casseroles when she was freshly post-pardum.  It meant being spiritually separated from her parents and sisters.  It meant allowing her family to believe she had fallen from grace.  She is brave.  The bravest person I know.  Anyone who faces demons the way she does would get sad some times.  Not only does she take care of her self, her two kids and her husband - she takes care of me.  And I don't say that lightly.

She takes me shopping so I don't come home with 10 brown shirts that should have been discontinued in 1974.
She taught me to put my make up on like a real live adult woman instead of a 10th grader who just got her first 'wet n wild' eyeliner.
If she finds a new kind of cookie while grocery shopping, she buys an extra box for me.
She gives me her Similac coupons.
She packs an extra swim suit for me when we go anywhere because she knows I will forget.
She tells me I am beautiful at the EXACT right time.
She lets me talk about my ugliest feelings without judging me or telling me I am being ugly.
She doesn't care that I have sailor mouth even though she doesn't.
She drives 70 miles to my house when my husband is out of town.
She gives my kids baths even though she has two of her own.
She went to my scary prenatal appointments with me when Brady couldn't - even though she was pregnant too.
She sits next to me on the couch and watches trashy TV while we eat cake (not slices of cake, but one whole cake between us - each of us armed with a fork)
She sent me flowers when I got my MA (the only person who got me flowers - not whining, just illustrating how she is)
She sends me a text every single day to connect.
She holds me accountable to take care of myself.
She encourages me to be a good wife and mother
She makes me feel better about having a 3.5 year old who isn't potty trained (because hers isn't either)
We endured TWO pregnancies together.  (Alex (hers) born Jan. 2010 - Rex (mine) born March 2010)  Felix (mine) born March 2013 - Theo (hers) born May 3013.
We shared Zofran and commiserated about throwing up and back aches and the grossness of pregnancy when our husbands couldn't hear one more word.
She talks to me about things a girl just cant talk to her husband about.
At some point, we realize that our husbands just CAN'T be our everything - there are just some roles they can't play in our lives.  We must have portions of this cup filled elsewhere.  This is my Sara.  She fills my cup.

The reason I write this is because I am losing her and I am not handling it well.
Her husband has been offered a job in Oregon
I throw up when I think about it.  Not figuratively.  Literally.  I throw up.

I realize that a lot of the people who may read this (although I have not yet decided if I am just venting for my own benefit or if I will share) are from somewhere north of San Francisco and west of Utah.  You may or may not realize that we north-westerners are a unique breed.  I didn't know this until I moved to Utah.  Regardless of where you fall religiously or politically - your views on race or your financial standing - there is something we all have in common.  I cant pin point it.  It's under our skin - like pine sap - or pacific breeze - or the "spirit of the Sierra Nevada's - but what ever it is - it's not in Utah.  (I am in no way saying Utah doesn't have its own merit.  Its gorgeous and full of amazing values and breath taking landscapes and my HUSBAND is here - he is definitely a Utah plus.  There is PLENTY to love here - including my LDS friends who've taught me that Christ is So much bigger than denomination).  All this to say - I still feel like I am a little different.  I just do LIFE differently.  I do life like a Northern Californian.  I don't know what it means - but I know it means "different"  - not bad or good.

There is a part of me that is misunderstood.  Like a mole on my face - it just sets me apart.  I am both proud of that and terribly isolated by it. 

Last week, my husband and I visited my family in California.  My cup was so full. 
My family is struggling - financially mostly.  Things are upturned and the outcomes are unknown and stressful - but there is this tangible sense of peace and community.  Not just in them because they are them.  But in the air.  In the actual AIR.  This unshakable sense that things are okay.  Even when they're not.  Like the Pinion Pines are their sentries.

When we left I was sad.  I am always sad when we leave.  But I chose Utah. I chose Brady because I love him intensely.  I love my home and my kids - and my friends.  But it hit me that soon I will be returning to a Utah without Sara.  Sara is my pinion pine.

I feel terribly faithless writing this.  I KNOW God will take care of me.  But that doesn't make me less afraid and sad.  I know this gives me an opportunity to lean against His throne.  I KNOW this will give me an opportunity to renew my faith in Brady to fill my cup and draw close to him in a way I have not done before.  But I am scared.  And Oh, so sad.  (and a little pissed at her husband - sorry Evan.  I totally get this is an opportunity you can't refuse)  And I feel jealous that she is going to the North West.  She will thrive there.  She was meant to be an Oregonian.  She will find a spiritual community that will get her.  I am so happy that she will be in a place where she will be embraced for being her soul searching self.

I am not confident I will find a friend who I can look in the face and talk to like I talk to Sara.  I am grateful for texts and phones and computers and I rely on them every day to maintain my most intimate friendships. 

I cry when Rex wakes up and says (before he even opens his eyes)  "I have fun with Awex".
I hate the way I feel.  I hate that I am being selfish and jealous and that Brady has to feel like he isn't enough for me.  That isn't really the truth.  He is enough.  But a gal needs more than a husband.  Especially a gal that is fed by intimate friendships.  Not just pals.  But heart-sharers.

I'm looking for peace.  I am looking for a way to be encouraging and excited for her (and my) new chapter - but this negativity is swarming around me like an irritating fly. 

Lord, grant me peace and teach me to see outside my own feelings and trust you with all of us.  Evan, Sara, Alex, Theo, Rex, Felix, Brady and ME.