Never Give Up

The last day.

It’s my last full day in Missouri.  This is it.  No image today - just a quote from a story.  I read this excerpt a few days ago and found it fitting to my emotions these last few years.  There have been many good times, but some of my loneliest as well.  It’s the truth, but it’s not a bad truth.  I think this truly captures the spirit of what I’m trying to say.

But he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scatterd in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a bruden and an ache. It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

-from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran