On Being Sent Away

Sometimes the most instructive thing I can do is send you away. Not as a punishment and not as an ending. Simply as a pause, chosen by me, that you did not ask for and cannot shorten.

You will want to argue. You will want to know why, and for how long, and what you did. Most of the time the answer is nothing at all. I send you away because there is something you can only learn when I am not there to hold it for you.

When you are near me, it is easy to be good. The structure is visible and the rules are close at hand. It is when I step back that I see what you have actually taken in, and what you were only performing while I watched.

So go. Carry on with your ordinary days. Keep the small rules I gave you without anyone to notice. Notice how often your thoughts drift back here, and what you do with that drifting. Do not write to ask whether you may return.

Some of you will treat the distance as freedom and let everything slip. That tells me a great deal. Others will find the rules weigh more without me in the room, and will keep them anyway. That tells me even more.

When I call you back, and I will, I want to hear about the days you kept faith with what we built, and the days you did not. Both are welcome. Only pretending is not.

Being sent away is not being forgotten. It is being trusted to hold yourself until I decide it is time.