Endings

About a year ago, my aunt died.

She had been extremely unwell for a long time, her adult life marred by addiction. Her existence wasn’t easy and nor was she. She could be a pain in the arse at the best of times, and at the worst of times - unbearable to be around.

Her death was, sadly, long-anticipated. It was accepted that she wouldn’t “make old bones” - and she didn’t. We shared the same birthday (I was born on her 18th), and if she’d lived to see her next, she would have only been 55.?

She was vibrant, funny, and gregarious. She was the cool aunt who bought you cigarettes and let you blame the unmistakable aroma on her when returning to the company of elders.?

Although I enjoyed my aunt’s exuberance, I had a long-standing superstition that I might meet the same fate as my ‘twin’. So in later years, I tried my best to avoid her, and to be as different from her as possible.

I’m ashamed to say that I dreaded seeing her at times, in all likelihood because it held up a mirror to some of my own choices and not wanting to be reminded of them. Confronting familial ties you wished would disappear.

But even when a death is expected, it can never prepare you for the aftermath.?

My aunt's death set off a chain of events that made me reevaluate my whole life. I felt as though I didn’t have another second to waste being unhappy - as much for her as for me.

The new-found impetus surprised me: I became self-employed again after playing ‘job chicken’ for a while, reacquainted myself with exercise, and made amends that needed to be made.

I was a lot happier than I had been in a very long time and my life was on an even keel for the first time ever. While this was a welcome turn of events, there was still a nagging feeling when I woke up in the mornings that something was just out of reach.

It took a while before I was brave enough to find out what that was.

Fast forward a year, and I’m in a yoga class that often elicits an emotional response. It’s slower paced than vinyasa, but very intense. By the final pose, I am a crying, howling mess.?

The theme of the class was endings, and if ever there was a word to describe my year so far, that would be it.

Personal and professional lines have been drawn, some with zero emotion, some with a sense of relief, and some with immense sadness.?

Hell, even switching hair salons after nearly 15 years was a wrench!

The letting go of things - the undoing of everything you know, everything that is familiar even if it’s bad for you - is the only way to turn an ending into a new beginning. Otherwise you’re just wallowing and sad, and in a state of inertia because the unknown is really scary.

That yoga class was like ten therapy sessions in one go and the culmination of all the endings that had happened along the way.

Marsha Linehan, the psychologist and creator of dialectical behaviour therapy, preaches the gospel of radical acceptance - letting go of what isn’t possible, and the notion of having control over events. She advises “accepting the reality is what it is, accepting that the event or situation causing pain has a cause, and accepting life can be worth living even with painful events.”

Before allowing myself to embrace endings, I carried a lot of angst and anger - easily rattled, worried, and a looming sense that all was not well. But having a radical acceptance that you’ve reached the end of something, notwithstanding the pain, can be incredibly freeing.?

I won’t pretend I’m an avid reader of Nietzsche, but in his book The Gay Science, he presents the idea of eternal recurrence: the prospect of living each moment of our lives over and over again forever. Nietzsche proposes that eternal recurrence is a litmus test for our capacity to affirm life - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

He says: “I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.”

Embrace all of life’s highs and lows - for it is greater than the sum of its parts.

More than ever, my philosophy now is to see where the wind takes me, to grab the opportunities that come my way, and to let what is not meant for me go as kindly and compassionately as I possibly can.

And while it’s heartbreaking that it takes someone dying or leaving to make radical change, perhaps that is what affirming life is truly about. Stark reality jolting us into the present and making us realise what it is that our hearts desire.

The author Harlan Ellison believed that far from shying away from pain, it is almost a gift:

“I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned.”

As we approach September, the concept of new beginnings edges ever closer for me. It is my (and my aunt’s) birth month, the start of the school year, and the beginning of a new season.?

And this year, it really is about entering a new chapter - heading into uncharted territory.

Trusting that everything is going to be ok, even when you’re scared about change and what’s to come, is half the battle. I know that if I’d tried to maintain the status quo of the last few years I would have been extremely unhappy in the long run.

In his song, Godspeed, Frank Ocean leads us on a devastating but equally affirming path of love and loss.?

The lyrics can be interpreted two ways: first, that he is addressing a former lover and wishing them happiness and prosperity in their journey through life, or second, that he is in fact speaking to himself as he transitions from one phase of life to the next.

Maybe endings, then, can be considered differently. Maybe endings are simply the beginning of the transition to somewhere else.

Wherever you are on your journey - godspeed.

See you on the other side.