Cycles

When endings come in life either through death, or divorce, or moving to a new house, or changing jobs, or children growing up, I’ve come to understand how complicated the grief of this situation can be. When endings come, you don’t just grieve the loss of the person, or the loss of the place, or the loss of the thing, you also grieve the loss of yourself that has identified strongly with that person, or that place or that thing, or that function, or that title. Even though we are human beings, there is a huge part of us who identifies ourselves by what we do, and we label ourselves accordingly. For me, I have many labels: I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, cousin, in-law, friend, homemaker, writer/blogger, American, Florida resident, JMU graduate, UF parent, Pittsburgh native, avid reader, dog owner, animal lover, boater, walker, mentor, deep thinker, adventurer, brown-eyed girl . . . . The point that I am making is that any of these labels that I identify myself as, can change (and have changed over the years) through death, moves, job changes, health changes, relationship changes, aging, world events (hello, 9/11 and the pandemic) etc. So when we are having a hard time letting go of someone, something, or some place, a lot of that difficulty of letting go, is the letting go of that function, or that label that connects us to the person, the place, the pet, the job, the house, the title etc. In order to let go, it feels like we almost have to cut off a piece of our own selves, that is still clinging to make this part of our lives, an ongoing part of our present circumstances. We have a hard time surrendering this person, place, or function, or thing, to our past, because we still desperately want it to be part of our present. We aren’t ready to sever that part of ourselves.

With the ailing of our extended family member, I’ve been reflecting a lot on grief and why it is so hard and unique to each individual. A lot of how hard you grieve someone or something, is how much you sunk your whole self into a relationship or a situation. When endings come around, you have to face that the definition of whatever you are grieving – the relationship, the place, the role, is soon coming to a close. There is no going back and changing it and making it different anymore. It is what it is, becomes the final statement. And so when you are packing up your things from your desk, or when you are turning in your keys, or you are signing your divorce papers, or you are attending a graduation, or a retirement party, or a funeral, you are giving away a little chunk of yourself. You are closing out a chapter on YOU. And that is so incredibly hard.

There are so many endings in life. Life is cyclic in nature. Summer is soon coming to a close. Many people have already experienced their long anticipated summer vacations. And there is grief in these facts, for many people. But as the saying goes, for every ending, there is a new beginning. I can’t wait for the cooler weather of fall and even the overload of pumpkin spice everything. I hate saying good-bye to anything or anyone important to me, but I also love anticipating fresh, new hellos to what’s next in my life, and the new pieces of myself that these new, fresh hellos will reveal to me.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert