Everyday Reflections

Will I Ever See You Again?

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

I’m writing this from the sky.
Somewhere between what was and what comes next. I boarded the plane, found my seat, and now I’m watching the clouds blur into something I can’t quite name.
And still, somehow, I feel stuck.
Suspended. Like I am paused in a doorway.
One foot in the past and the other not sure where it is going to land.

Over the last few weeks, I said a lot of goodbyes. Some short. Some silent. Some that felt like the kind of goodbye you don’t come back from. And somewhere in nearly every one, the same question found its way to the surface.

“Will I ever see you again?”

And the truth is, I do not know.

I wanted to have a better answer. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say of course. I wanted to say absolutely. I wanted to make promises, even if I was not sure I could keep them. But I have learned that sometimes the kindest thing you can do is tell the truth, even when it breaks your own heart.

And the truth is that life is not a straight road. It loops and turns and takes you places you never expected. And I do not know where this chapter is going to lead me. I would love to come back to Virginia. To the porches and backroads. To the trails and the tucked-away corners. To the places that held me when I did not have words. To the people who stood by me through all of it.
To the mountain views, yes, but also the little things. The streetlights and sidewalk conversations. The small-town moments and quiet kind of love I found scattered across this state.

But I have also left something behind. Something heavy. And not all returns are healing. Some just reopen wounds that have not scarred over yet.

There is a version of this story where I do come back. Where I visit in the fall or the spring. Where we sit on couches or church steps or trailheads and pick up right where we left off. Where the leaves still change.
Where the air still smells like woodsmoke and memory. I hope that version exists. I hope I get to live it.

But if I do not, please know this.

I loved this place.
I loved these people.
I loved this chapter of my life, even when it broke me.

And I will carry it with me.
All of it.
The memories.
The quiet hellos.
The brave goodbyes.
The moments I was seen and the ones I never found words for.
The laughter I will replay. The silences that taught me how to stay.

Virginia will keep breathing without me. That is how it works. The wind will keep moving. The leaves will keep falling. The sun will keep setting over the ridges and rooftops. Over the porches and roads and places I may never stand again.

But I hope you remember I was here.
I hope you know you mattered.
I hope we find our way back to each other in some season or some sky.

For now, I am flying.

And part of me is still there. Curled up on Megan’s couch. Watching the leaves dance. Wondering if maybe, just maybe, this is not an ending. Just a pause.

The In-between Place

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

This past weekend, I ended eleven years of service to Crossroads. Eleven years of sunrises and sunsets, of hauling water jugs and fixing what broke. Of cleaning cabins before anyone noticed and showing up again and again when it would’ve been easier to walk away. It wasn’t just a job. It was a lifetime of love, disguised as labor. It was ministry in motion, where the sacred wore work boots and moved picnic tables in the rain.

And now, it’s over.

I’m in Williamsburg for the week, a soft pause between the chapter I just closed and the chaos waiting for me back home in South Dakota. This week is a gift, rest after 100-hour summer weeks and the kind of exhaustion that doesn’t just touch your body, but your spirit too. I’ve been given slow mornings, gentle light, the space to just be. I’ve let myself sleep in, take long showers, go still. And still, the ache lingers. Because grief doesn’t wait for the right time. It follows you into the quiet. It packs itself in your bag and sits on your chest when the sun goes down.

And I’ll be honest: I’ve been staying with my best friend-my sun-and I feel like a bad guest.

Not because she’s made me feel that way. Not once. She’s been warm and welcoming and patient, like she always is. But because I’m not fully here. My mind keeps drifting back to the mountain, to all the goodbyes I didn’t know how to say. My body’s tired in a way I can’t explain, and I find myself quieter than usual, hollowed out, still carrying the weight of all I just left behind.

I want to show up. I want to be more present, more fun, more “me.” But right now, I’m this version-tender, frayed at the edges, not quite landed. And I hate that I feel guilty for that. For not being easier to be around. For not matching her light. But she doesn’t ask that of me. She just lets me be. Even when I feel like a ghost in my own skin. Even when I don’t have the words.

It’s bittersweet. That’s the only word that fits.

I’ve said goodbye to people I might never see again. Packed up rooms I once knew by heart. Walked the porch one last time with my hand on the doorframe, like maybe it would remember me. I left with the wind, just another leaf carried off the mountain.

And now I’m here. Not at Crossroads, not yet home. Somewhere in between. Caught between the grief of what I’ve left and the chaos of what I’m returning to.

Because home in South Dakota isn’t quiet. It’s the farm. It’s nieces with tangled hair and loud laughter. It’s family dinners and dirt roads and sunrises over cornfields. It’s love, messy and full and loud.

And I’ll bring all of this with me. The stars I watched every night. The porch light that kept me going. The part of me that learned to serve quietly, fiercely, without needing to be seen.

Some chapters don’t close cleanly. Some goodbyes echo long after the doors are shut.

But I’m learning to breathe in the in-between. To let myself be carried by the people who love me, even when I feel like I’m too heavy. To trust that rest doesn’t make me a burden.

And I’m still writing.

Because even the guilt-laced pauses and quiet returns deserve to be remembered.

Even the aching rests in the homes of those who love us.

Even the in-between.
Even this.

Edges of Autumn

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

It’s a lazy Sunday. One of those early September days when the sun moves slowly and the sky hasn’t quite decided whether it’s done with summer yet. I was doing the usual, taking out the trash, scrubbing out corners of the house that are ignored on busy days, and trying to clean the week off my hands so I could step into the next one a little lighter. The kind of cleaning that isn’t just about wiping surfaces but about finding control in the little things. Breathing room. A fresh start.

Once the house was reset, I grabbed my empty Yeti bottles and made my way to Hunt Hall. Everyone knows that Hunt has the best water. We’re on a well system out here, so the water isn’t processed or filtered down to nothing, it’s cold, crisp, and tastes like it came straight from the heart of the mountain. And somehow, the sink at Hunt always hits better than the rest. Maybe it’s superstition. Maybe it’s just the way comfort attaches itself to places we return to often.

And that’s when I saw it.

The tree outside Hunt Hall. Tall and quiet and waiting, like it has been all summer. But today, the sun caught the very top of it, just right. And in that light, I noticed it: the first blush of autumn. Just the top leaves. Just a few. Stained in red and orange like someone had taken a match to the edge of summer.

It stopped me.

It shouldn’t have. I’ve lived through enough Septembers to know the signs. The crispness in the mornings, the way the light hits differently, the first leaf that crunches underfoot when you weren’t even looking for it. But there was something about seeing it here, outside Hunt, in the middle of a chore I’d done a hundred times, that made me still.

Maybe it was the contrast. The way the top leaves flared with color while the rest of the tree held onto green. Like it wasn’t ready to let go yet. Like it was trying to hold both seasons in its branches for just a little longer. And maybe I understood that more than I wanted to.

There’s a lot we carry into fall. The weight of what we didn’t say over the summer. The tiredness that lingers even after we sleep. The goodbyes we didn’t mean to say but ended up whispering anyway. And still, we move forward. Still, the days get shorter. Still, the leaves change whether we’re ready or not.

But this tree, catching the light, reminded me that change doesn’t always arrive all at once. Sometimes it begins at the edges. Quietly. Slowly. With just a few leaves turning red while the rest of you tries to stay the same.

I think that’s how I feel right now.

I’m not fully in fall yet. Not ready for the rush of endings or the turning of pages. But I’m starting to feel it. The shift. The Knowing. That something is coming, and I won’t be the same once it’s here.

So I stood there, for a moment, water bottles forgotten in my arms, and let myself just be. With the tree. With the change. With the soft, burning light of a lazy Sunday.

And maybe that’s enough.
To notice.
To pause.
To begin to let go.

Even if it’s just one leaf at a time.