Musings

Endings are tough. Doesn't matter if they are just "new beginnings", they still stink. And often there are so many of them.

Sometimes they are just suddenly there. No time to prepare and nothing you can do but suck it up and move on. Other times they sneak up on you like a cat upon a bird until suddenly they pounce and you are stunned to find your life changed. Some endings we create for ourselves, while others are created by others for us. Some we embrace because we must and it's time. Then there are the ones we resist with our very beings-putting first our foot, then as much of ourselves as we can into that closing door. Trying to stop what we see coming and don't want to admit to ourselves. Those are the hardest...the ones where we must admit defeat. But no matter what the shape, form, or time our endings take, they are still hard.

It's funny, even when we close that door ourselves and head onward, there is still some part of us that wants to stop. Wants to turn around, sit, and stare at that door that we just closed. Hoping we have some mystical Jedi mind trick that will open the door back up and let us go on as we were...even if only for just a bit longer. We want to take refuge in that which is familiar and comforts us, but in our hearts we know we can't. Jedi mind tricks are only in the movies and endings aren't meant to be undone. So really, all we can do is square our shoulders and march down the hall of life looking for those "new beginnings" and resisting the urge to try and undo our endings. Even when every squeak and movement behind us makes us think that maybe, maybe, this ending has changed.

We mourn our endings. It doesn't matter whether we had a hand in their creation or no, there is always something lost when something ends. And that's OK...the mourning and the losing. That is how we find more.

They say that for every door that closes, another opens. Sometimes it's difficult to see that door because we are so busy looking and wishing at the one that we just closed we don't feel the new breezes blowing. Therein lies the difficulty: how do we mourn our endings without ignoring the other beginnings?