Of Endings

For the longest time, I’ve been terrible at endings. I’ve been the sort that grows to keep just a little left over – whether in a jar or in a person, on the off chance that I may need it – in the murky mists of what constitutes the future. And so, my life has been full of endings, and I have lived it with the perfect combination of consistent fear and comfort – that there still remains just a little bit, should the need arise.

In the year gone by, I learned more about myself than I ever have before. And what I came face to face with wasn’t always particularly savoury or palatable. I took a good long look at who I’d become, and in many places, blanched at what I saw. Relationships do many things to people – many of them wonderful, but some, can make you lose sight of yourself, in your effort to make someone else, the perfect partner.

Endings, can be difficult. To those of us who cling to security, the concept of closing a door, or a clean break, can be frightening in the extreme. It means coming to terms with loss, dealing with the loneliness, surviving the lack – and keeping a little chink open easily lessens the blow, it gives you an option, a back-up plan. Back up plans, such as they are, are great. It’s great to have the choice of shifting to Plan B, when you discover you hate your job, when life is throwing you lemons, or when the movie you’ve wanted to see, is sold out for that show. It’s just not all that great, when you keep in touch with an ex, on the off chance that the current doesn’t work out.

I’d like to think, that with age, with grief and with heartbreak, comes a certain maturity, a certain strength, which those who are lucky enough to emerge unscathed are incapable of comprehending. I once read, in an article that spoke to the inner realms of that strange organ that is my heart, that the real graduation of turning 30 is having your heart broken. Badly.

I speak only for myself when I say that I have lived to avoid confrontation. Escapism, has been my friend, and procrastination, my mentor. I have lived the past 10 odd years of my life sweeping bits that I didn’t like under the rug, and polishing parts that I did, to a shine that gave them far more gloss than they deserved. I’ve made wrong decisions, and bad choices, and I’d be a sorry person indeed, should I not be able to own up and say so. I have struggled with change, and run from acceptance. But I’m truly lucky that Time, has been kind, and timing almost providential.

I am today, my favourite word – sorted, at least sort of. And that is a whole journey, from the world of messed up, my ex- best friend.

  

I finish what I start, and my room is no longer littered with almost finished tubs of body cream, or bottles of perfume that have just enough left over for a final evening of evocative scents. The dregs of lotion are used up, and the bottles thrown away. My life, is my own, my lessons learned. 30 may come, in but a few days, but wisdom and sense have preceded it. 

It’s taken me a while to understand the beauty that lies in a new beginning, that is unlinked to an un-ended end.