The End? {Coffee for Your Heart}


So many things are coming to a close. I'm trying to learn to be okay with that. When you spend so much of your time planning events, I guess you can feel a little empty when they're over. Or you can feel bored when you got so caught up in one thing, and it too comes to an end. I have this problem. I'm watching as all these things end, and instead of feeling happy that they happened, and that more is to come, I'm getting sad because it'll all end eventually.
I got baptized last weekend ... and the anticipation was exhilarating, and nerve-wracking. I at the same time wanted it to be over, and to happen over and over again, please and thank you. I felt so calm and subdued when it had ended. And that in itself was a miracle.
The road trip ended, too. I missed my bed too much to be overly broken up about that one. And the cold weather, my floor heater, wifi, friends, family that didn't come ... I wasn't home. And now I am. So I think about when that will end, also. I can't stay here forever. I don't want to. Greater things are yet to come ... but why does that always mean that the good things have to end? Like Frozen. That movie was way shorter than I wanted it to be.
Time with friends always is too little as well. They leave, I leave, we all leave. And I'm left. Left to think of all the things I forgot to say, all the things I shouldn't have said ... how I wish for a do-over, or a repeat. But I'm just left. Friendships end, too. I used to refuse to believe that. And I admit it was hard to hear the truth from the one friend whom I above all couldn't bear to see the end of. Letting go isn't my strong suit. Hopeless dreaming is.
I wish some things could last forever. But that would only be fair if I took the good with the bad. Would it be truly worth it to have more time with those I love, longer moments of magnitude ... if the storms raged for hours longer; if evil prevailed for days more because of it? I am so narrow-minded. Yes, I must say "All good things must come to an end," but by saying that, I am also able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and say, "This too shall pass."
Hindsight is 20/20. And I've always felt that my perspective is best put on paper. Literally, as I write here, everything is black and white.
Endings often bring beginnings, I've noticed, and could it be that these are well worth their cost? Do we exchange our painful goodbyes for new hellos? Do I tell my story and have to move on, in exchange for someone to hear it and find their own story? Do I risk leaving home for the hope of a new one? Does the end of this chapter of my life simply prepare me for my great climax? Do I take the chance and finish that project, knowing that the effect it will have on the person it is for will be greater than the effect it had on its maker? "Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes."
The best is yet to come. That is what I want to tell to the grandbabies. Not, "Those were the good days." I wanna tell them that they're all good days, whether they feel like it or not.


(Join us over at Holley Gerth's for a link up?)

Comments

  1. AmandaMarch 29, 2014 at 2:59 PM

    Oh...I always have trouble with "the end." I'm just the sort of person who hates good things ending. Somehow I always manage to forget that somethings have to end so that other good things can come. What you said about it not being worth it to have the bad things last longer too is good to remember. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

May this place be a home and a haven.

Popular posts from this blog

Dear Ann {Coffee for Your Heart}

Image
This week's prompt from Holley Gerth is "Who inspires you?" Simple enough, but I didn't just want to say some names and leave it at that. I chose one who has profoundly impacted my life, and I wrote her a letter. She may never see this post, but I am posting it anyway.  (image via Google)            Dear Ann , You may or may not remember me. I don't know if I want you to or not. I emailed you as a girl a little younger, and a lot less secure. I emailed you in tears, and you replied in love. But at that point, you had already inspired me. I pulled your book off my mother's shelf, on a happy and altogether forgettable day ... I didn't journal that day, so that's all I know. I had stopped journaling when life stopped sounding prettier on paper. And I'd long forgotten why it was worth the fight. The pages of that book witnessed a journey ... one that still blows my mind. We left the church I called home; a place that I had so deeply based my
Read more

You're Not Alone {Coffee for Your Heart}

Image
(via Holley Gerth ) (Photo by Tara Gourley ) This isn’t easy for me to talk about, but if people only talked about the easy stuff, this world would be in serious disarray--well, more serious. I’m going to be honest here; the type of honesty that requires trust, and that is something that I am still learning, slowly . I have felt alone. I have stood in the middle of a crowded room and have felt so desperately lonely that it nearly drowned me. This has happened in my own home. I have been prone to anxiety attacks. I’ve sat on the floor, feeling like the world is caving in, and have only recently learned to text someone I trust when this happens. I have laid alone in my bed and cried myself to sleep. I know these feelings, and I know how real they can seem; so real that everything else looks fake and twisted in comparison. I have hid in corners and let the lie consume me: I am alone. I wasn’t. And dear soul, you aren’t either. Do you hear me? You. Are. Not. Alon
Read more

Endings

Image
Scott Henry Photography I am learning to appreciate endings Not just the happy kind And not the kind that screams, “Sequel!” or “their lives go as such” But endings True—perhaps upsetting—but Authentic endings In an age in which our phones are always open We get so very little closure Except silence As a teenager, I did not know That no one would call me to say that I was not being considered for that job at the market Their answer was silence I followed up And was told that my application Was more or less in a wastebasket Like the messages I had sent a stupid boy Who considered me not worth meeting In the movies I watched as a child, with my mother There were no unhappy endings She didn’t allow those in our house I remember watching one with her “Funny Girl” And sitting in shock as the credits rolled At having witnessed something so crushing That couldn’t be the ending, could it? I lived my life in similar denial Horrified by goodbye
Read more