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. :)

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