Leaving in all its different forms
This week’s prompt for Denyse’s #lifethisweek is Leaving and it made me stop and think. What did leaving mean to me? Once I started thinking I had trouble stopping 🙂
If you leave me, can I come too?
Mental as Anything
Leaving
Leaving: My father was always leaving us. He was in the Australian Navy, so he would leave and then months later come back with lots of exciting stories and gifts. It was harder on mum than us, but it had lots of impacts on our family life for many years.
Leaving friends: Moving house, changing schools, leaving friends, having to make new ones. One of the benefits of Facebook has been finding and reconnecting with old friends.
Leaving school: School finished and soon after I was engaged to the Mathematician and working in a bank. Leaving school was the end of a milestone but I was happy to be growing up.
Leaving home: As the Mathematician was appointed to a school a million miles away and we were planning our wedding, I applied for a transfer with the bank and it was granted in record time. By the time I was 19 I’d left home, left the town I’d grown up in and started a new phase of my life in a big city. Life was good!
Leaving the life of young marrieds with no dependents: We started a family within a few years of being married and so we left one stage of life and moved onto the next, with all the ups and downs that entailed.
Leaving city life: We made the decision to move our family to the country and it was one of the best decisions we’d ever made. But we left friends, colleagues and a fabulous lifestyle on the coast.
Leaving Australia: After a year of living in our new country town we upped and moved the whole family across the world to England for a year on a Teacher exchange program – this was a brave and bold move as none of us had ever been that far away from family and overseas travel was a whole new experience for us all! We left our friends and family and swapped it for another life for a year and it was everything and more than we’d expected it to be.
Leaving England: One of the saddest and hardest things we’ve done as the girls didn’t want to come back to Aus. We’d made a life there and had more friends to leave behind.
Daughters leaving home: It seemed as if our three girls couldn’t wait to get as far away as they could from our small town life, where dad taught at the local high school and mum was well known for her many roles in the community. At times when they were teenagers I wanted to leave home too but I had to make do with a brisk/ferocious walk around the next door vineyard. The girls moved away, going overseas for a GAP year and so many more farewells and leavings were on the cards. They always came back and love returning home now!
Leaving on a jet plane: We’ve been fortunate to have had lots of trips overseas and leaving was always exciting with the anticipation of the trip a highlight to me. Then after our trip we would leave to come home and settle down for a while before our next trip. Those days are long gone due to COVID, but hopefully they will return in time. I now have a daughter and granddaughter living in England so need to be able to travel to see them again.
Leaving my job: A lot has been written about this over the past few years, a sad, awful time that has managed, in time, to turn into a completely different life with all that I could wish for.
Parents leaving: Saying final goodbyes to parents and other friends and relatives over the years has been sad but also an opportunity to learn more about their lives and their impact on others. Grief is hard.
Autumn is leaving: As I write this, Autumn is about to turn into Winter and I’m humming this in my head to the tune of The Sounds of Silence (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel).
Hello winter my old friend, you’ve come to visit me again, because the frosts are increasing, leaving ice while I was sleeping, and the vision of the coldness tells my brain, winter comes, within the sound of silence!
So what did I discover?
After looking at these examples of leaving, my take on it is that leaving is a part of life, it’s hard, it can be sad, but it can also be good, and all that has gone before has made me into the person I am today.
How about you?
What does leaving mean to you?
Feel free to click on Denyse’s link up and see what others have written on this topic and maybe join in!
I’d love to hear from you 🙂
Deb xx
Recent posts you may have missed:
- Another great month of exploring #WBOYC
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- The Thong Pole in Tathra #WordlessWednesday
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You can also find Deb’s World in lots of other places – stay in touch by clicking any of the buttons below.
Everyone has a story to tell! Deb is a young-at-heart & active 60+ blogger/retiree, after being made redundant from her 22-year career managing education programs in a men’s correctional centre (jail). She now spends her time reading, blogging, riding her ebike and travelling. Deb was awarded a Bravery Award from the Queen when she was 17 after a tragic accident – a definite life changing moment! She is married with 3 grown-up daughters & has 4 grandchildren. She never imagined being Granny Debs would bring so much joy to her life! You can read more of Deb’s story here
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Lovely post ….leaving involves forms of loss and grief. Your essay reminds me of Fredrik Beuchner’s A Room Called Remember …..here’s a link to some quotes https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/35311-a-room-called-remember-uncollected-pieces
When I taught, I always ended the year with a “If These Walls Could Talk” class meeting where we could safely share some poignant thoughts…..leaving is worthy of our reflection
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Thanks Carol, those quotes were really interesting and fitting. What a lovely way to end a year with ‘if these walls could talk’ sessions. I bet there were some amazing stories told.
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It was a safer way to share!
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Beautiful photos Deb, such glorious colours. You have done a fair bit in your life, marrying so young. I also have left many times, UK to Hong Kong to Australia.
Your posts are always so interesting.
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Many thanks for your lovely comments Alison! I must admit my life is rarely ever dull and boring 🙂 Marrying young has been good for both of us and we’re still going strong!
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That’s good to here Debbie, we are thirty years next week! Will be celebrating at home just the two of us as currently quarantining
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Oh no, that’s not good that you are quarantining, congrats on celebrating 30 years 🙂 Take care
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Thanks 😎
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I can feel your pain leaving the UK. I only holidayed there but hated coming home. While lockdown has been on here in Vic. I have been saving for another trip there in a few years.
Great images too.
My Dad worked on the Able Tasman ship so he was home a month, away a month, all through my childhood. He was in the English Navy during WW2.
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Great to have your thoughts on this too, thanks! It’s been a hard time for many lately and I wish you well on planning your trip in a few years time.
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I’d like to leave, for a little while by myself. Come back later.
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Yes I totally get that Antoinette!
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One of your best posts, Deb! It made me think about all the ways in our life where some form of leaving happens and you’ve covered most of them. I think it also shows that even though leaving can be sad it can also mean new opportunities like you and Grant had when he was transferred for work and also to the UK. Leaving makes you stronger and more resilient. You’ve really made me think about it today. Thanks! xx
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Oh thank you so much Sue, that means a lot to me! Yes new opportunities and adventures have all come from making those decisions to leave. The prompt really got me thinking too, so that’s good!
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Strangely enough, I was the one who left my close-knit family to study at a university in a different province; who has always lived the furthest away from my childhood home – that was the card life dealt me. When I meet up with my brothers every couple of years though, it feels like yesterday. Now it is my daughter who lives so far away … I can now appreciate how my mother must have felt about me!
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Yes it’s hard when we are put into that situation isn’t it Anne. I never really gave it much thought until my daughters left home, as how my parents felt about it all. Different times too! Thanks for dropping by.
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Hi Deb – life is full of goodbyes isn’t it? But what I love is that with every goodbye, there comes the opportunity for some new helloes. If we’d never moved, or never married, or never had children, or never travelled, our lives would be so much smaller – so I guess a lot of the leaving is what leads us to new adventures.
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You’re so right Leanne, new opportunities blossom in the strangest of places and lead to new adventures! That’s what life is all about 🙂
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Gorgeous photos Debbie! Leaving is hard. For me, leaving means never returning to the same point of where I left off. It is either leaving not so nice times behind and am glad about it OR leaving the precious ones and knowing that if ever a chance to meet; be it in an earthly realm or spiritual one. Good post that made me think. Thanks for sharing.
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I’m so pleased to hear your thoughts on leaving, many thanks for sharing. I’m also glad my post made you pause and think on the subject 🙂
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Hi Deb, I love Simon and Garfunkel and that’s one of my favourite songs of their’s. You’ve certainly left on some great adventures. I guess the equivalent one for me was when my sister and I left New Zealand as 19 and 18 year olds to travel to Australia on a backpacking holiday. We were told we wouldn’t last over here but over 35 years later I’m still here. Let’s hope we all get to travel again one day. Regards, Christina
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That would have been an exciting trip Christina, considering you stayed here!! Yes to travelling again one day soon! Thanks for not telling me I murdered their song too by the way 🙂
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Such a thoughtful post which shows that often leaving is the precursor to something new, a new job, a new experience etc.
I’ve seen colleagues who were moved between countries several times and it was interesting how their children responded. Some struggled to settle. into the new school, make new friends but others seemed to embrace all the changes and became more confident
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Thank you for your insightful comment. You know how sometimes you can sit down and the words and thoughts just flow – this was one of those moments and I’m really pleased it came out so well – and that you thought so too! Our children coped really well with the move, too well at times, and coming back to Australia with an English accent didn’t do much for their reputation when they returned to school. Looking back it was the best thing we ever did with our children and one of them is now living in the village we went to on our Teacher Exchange, Cheddar in Somerset. How weird is that? Lovely to connect!
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Your dad wrote a book? He must have passed his writing skills along to you, Deb.
I love the photo of your young family. The time when my kids were that young seems like a million years ago to me!
Hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane soon. we are visiting our middle son next month, who lives 3,000 miles away. That flight will be our first one in 1.5 years!
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Yes Laurie, dad wrote a book about his Navy experiences, it’s only for family members though! We used some of his own words from it at his funeral. Thanks for the compliment too!
I hope you enjoy your first flight in so long and I’m very happy for you to be able to travel to visit your son – have a great time!
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You’re so right, leaving is part of life, isn’t it? I’m doing all the leaving today – leaving on a jet plane and leaving David and Teddy – it’s going to be hard. It’s going to take me a while to get used to my mum’s leaving but I’ll hold that meme dear and if I cry, I’ll tell people not to worry, it’s just my memories leaking! I needed to see that today so thank you 🙂
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Travel safely Sammie and wishing you well. xx
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A beautiful post Deb. Full of your history and making it such a great story. Blogging is good for that. Yes, i can understand you urge to fly…so hard when someone says :”no” even if it is a good reason. I had not realised that your Dad was often absent at sea. I know, working,but still it’s tough on Mum at home from those I already know who have done that/do that.
Thanks so much for being part of the Life This Week Community by linking up. I always appreciate my blogging friends comments on my post too. Have a great first week of June. See you next Monday I hope. The optional prompt is: Motivate. Denyse.
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Thank you for your lovely comment Denyse. I completely understand the reasons for not flying but every now and again it gets to me! It was very hard at times for mum when dad was away at sea and she doesn’t have a good relationship with the Navy as a result. Even after all these years! See you next week 🙂
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I think of most phases of my life as moving onto something else rather than leaving so cope with those well and with positivity. When people leave this earth on the other hand, that’s a whole other matter. I’ve been fortunate I haven’t lost too many people close to me, but by God it hurts when they leave.
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Yes that’s the hardest part of life Chris.
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