Today I'm thankful for the times when things come to an end, which isn't the easiest way to be. It's taken some serious thinking to get here, because the good side of endings is one that my head can understand pretty easily but my heart struggles to feel. I get the importance of the shifts in the people, places, and circumstances around me, but I still cringe a little when the time comes to give something up.
I'm thankful for endings because of the space in my life that they leave vacant. That empty space is uncomfortable at first, and it can feel purposeless, scary. The truth is that vacancies are invaluable because they're full of potential - where there is nothing now, there can be anything. When endings take away a part of our lives, we have the chance to put energy and talent and time into something new. Stable lives made up of everlasting habits and people and places don't have room for growing; the uncertainty of an ending does.
As my mind tries to make the rest of me understand about things coming to conclusion, the part that my heart grasps most readily is the fact that a beginning, necessarily, is preceded by an end. Nothing new can start without something old stepping aside, and I love beginnings. That's something that I can get on board with, that I can go all in for and be genuinely excited about. When things end, I can be pretty sure that I'm right on the edge of something new, and something that could be really, really good.
The collection has closed. Let other people know about it through twitter.
