Tonight I had to say goodbye to my DBT group. Wow. This is the hardest goodbye I really am having so far. I didn't realize just how pivotal a group of previous strangers would be to my world. I have only been in this specific group for two months, since there was a schedule change and it meant I had to go to a different time and a different group of people. I am so thankful I made that decision.
This group is amazing. The love and support and validation from this group of people is mind-boggling. We laugh together, cry together, and do life together. It's a different way than church groups do life, but I feel like this was what I needed and will probably continue to need. We all admit that we are broken and we are here because we are trying to find away to fit into the world around us. There is something ever so wonderful about the honesty that is present in that room. We are a group of imperfect people, not striving for perfection, but just to manage life better, with all of our baggage. I just don't have the words right now to articulate what it is I am feeling.
I know that I am really sitting with my grief, but in a way, it is a happy grief. I am sad at the loss of having these people around me every week and at all the inside jokes I am going to miss and the stories that I won't here and the growth I won't see. But there is joy in the mix, happiness and thankfulness for these people, love for them and from them, and so much hope and encouragement to go forth and live.
We all enter this group at different times and different places, walk with each other for a while, and then, we step out and live our lives. I think that is one of the things that is unique about this type of group. We are destined to leave. Every module or unit, we feel this, the cycle of the group, people graduating and people joining. There is a rhythm with it that is comforting. It is hopeful, because it means that one day, we too will graduate and we will have grown and developed beyond what we were when we started.
And in a way, that's what I'm doing. I didn't have my graduation ceremony tonight though, because I have the intention to return and participate in this group again. I have taken on the banner of going on sabbatical. I don't think I could have really done graduation tonight, in that I would have been a bawling mess the whole time and that I'm not ready to leave.
I started DBT saying I wanted to just do a one and done with it. Nope. I have embraced the process, the journey that is this group, and I do really need to do the cycle again. Not only because I want to keep improving, but even more so that I feel like there is more there. I probably could go forth and do just one cycle and be fine in the world, but I know that taking time and looking at these things again, as well as the constant practice I will have on the trail, will benefit me. I'm not done yet. And that's okay.
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