"People aren't things, you don't get to keep them"

As I sit on the stair case to the attic of my house, having moved into the tiny space because something about it calls to be sat on and wondered on, whereas the sun-loungers just seem to make me lazy with the sweet sticky heat that is about to become the norm....I have found myself wondering about everything.Wondering about identity and holding on to people, and how you never get to keep people. I was reading 'If you find this letter' this morning and that sentence struck center in my body. "People aren't things, you don't get to keep them"I live and work and have joyful community in a organization where people move on, every few months new people arrive and the old people leave and some of us stay. (yes again, I am writing about change again)But this weekend, much like one this time last year, oh and that one at Christmas too; some people insanely dear to my heart told me they are leaving....and so the bottled up emotions of saying goodbye all came out. You see I had held it together knowing that my two housemates were leaving, but adding on 4 more to the already growing list and my heart couldn't take it much more.So out came the tears and frustration of knowing new friendships would have to be rebuilt and these ones now would change and maybe disappear over time- earlier than I wanted.I am learning, slowly learning, that you cannot keep people. They are not mine to have. They are their own and Gods. I get to borrow some of their time for a while, store up memories and photos and sometimes letters which give me a glimpse of what we had for that amount of time. And then life goes on and you adapt and contact each other every-so-often but never truly get to keep one another.And I am learning slowly that my identity is not in those friendships groups or in those social circles, it cannot be built on who I am when I am surrounded by people who make me better. No, rather it is built in my own space. In my own conversations with God and in His love. In the constant that He is, even when we question His existence and His plans. On my bedroom and kitchen floors, in my typing away on this space and scribbling away in the journals. It is in the moments where it is just me...and then Him- because somehow the Creator of everything knows me and shows me that in Him it is and always will be good. Sometimes hard but always Good.R/