Endings are part of the cycle

Life is often a celebration of new beginnings.

We celebrate new homes, promotions, weddings and births, but we rarely celebrate endings.

When my boys were babies, I was always so eager for them to hit the next milestone. To crawl. To walk. To talk. In hindsight, I wish I would have spent more time being present and noticing their lasts. I have no recollection of the last time they nursed or reached out for my hand when walking. Baby books (If I had I actually written in them 🙄) are filled with firsts, not lasts.

We focus all of our attention on what lies ahead.

Maybe it’s because when we think of saying good-bye to a phase of life, difficult emotions arise, and we are a culture that avoids difficult emotions.

Endings often come with feelings of FAILURE or SADNESS, and all endings innately come with a FEAR of the unknown.

We’ve been taught to persevere through challenges so much that deciding to end something can make us feel like we are less than.

So we gloss over endings, and focus instead on what’s next.

But what if we gave a little more attention to endings? 

Endings are part of the cycle.

They are a time to look back on what we’ve learned, and the ways we’ve grown.

Endings give us CLOSURE.

There are endings that leave us elated, and there are endings that tear us apart, but the truth is that all endings take away a little piece of us. 

Even if things didn’t go as planned, there’s something satisfying about finishing a chapter before moving forward.

In my own life, I’m inching towards the end of something really big; I'll share more some day, but for now, Ill just say that I’m in a weirdly uncomfortable in-between space where parts of my old life are dying, and the new isn’t quite born yet.

It's taking every ounce of my being to not race ahead. To simply be present and to savor and celebrate the lasts. Maybe you can relate?